The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52

by Dame Shirley · English · Gutenberg #23280 · 474,012 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52

Author: Dame Shirley

Release date: November 1, 2007 [eBook #23280]
Most recently updated: December 17, 2014

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23280

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHIRLEY LETTERS FROM CALIFORNIA MINES IN 1851-52 ***

Produced by Larry Mittell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have
been retained.

_The_ Shirley Letters

_Other_ REPRINTS _Issued_

CALIFORNIA. _A_ HISTORY _of_ UPPER & LOWER CALIFORNIA _from their_
FIRST DISCOVERY _to the_ PRESENT TIME [1835]. Comprising an Account of
the Climate, Soil, Natural Productions, Agriculture, Commerce, &c. A
full view of the Missionary Establishments, and condition of the free
and domesticated Indians. With an Appendix relating to Steam-navigation
in the Pacific. ILLUSTRATED with a new Map, Plans of the Harbors, and
numerous Engravings. By ALEXANDER FORBES, Esq. Reprinted, page for
page, and approximately line for line, from the original edition
published by Smith, Elder, & Co., London, 1839, and to which is added a
NEW INDEX.

_Price_ $10, _net_.

VOYAGE _of the_ SONORA _in the_ SECOND BUCARELI EXPEDITION _to_ EXPLORE
_the_ NORTHWEST COAST, SURVEY _the_ PORT _of_ SAN FRANCISCO, _and_
FOUND FRANCISCAN MISSIONS _and a_ PRESIDIO _and_ PUEBLO _at that_ PORT.
The JOURNAL kept in 1775 on the SONORA by DON FRANCISCO MOURELLE, the
Second Pilot of the Fleet constituting the Sea Division of the
Expedition. Translated by the HON. DAINES BARRINGTON from the original
Spanish manuscript. Reprinted line for line and page for page from
BARRINGTON'S MISCELLANIES, published in London in 1781. With concise
NOTES showing the Voyages of the Earliest Explorers on the Coast, the
Sea and Land Expeditions of GALVEZ and of BUCARELI for the settlement
of California and for founding Missions, and MANY OTHER INTERESTING
NOTES, as well as AN ENTIRELY NEW INDEX TO BOTH THE JOURNAL AND THE
NOTES, by THOMAS C. RUSSELL. Together with a reproduction of the DE LA
BODEGA SPANISH CARTA GENERAL (MAP), showing the Spanish discoveries on
the Coast up to 1791, and also a PORTRAIT of BARRINGTON.

_Price_ $15, _net_.

NARRATIVE of EDWARD McGOWAN. _Including a full Account of the Author's_
ADVENTURES _and_ PERILS _while persecuted by the_ SAN FRANCISCO
VIGILANCE COMMITTEE _of_ 1856. Together with a Report of his Trial,
which resulted in his Acquittal. Reprinted, line for line and page for
page, from the original edition published by the author in 1857,
complete, with reproductions, in facsimile, of the original
illustrations, cover-page title, and title-page.

_Price_ $10, _net_.

_These works are printed in limited editions. Copies are numbered and
signed. The typesetting is all done by hand, and the type distributed
immediately upon completion of presswork. The printing, in all its
details, is the personal work of_ THOMAS C. RUSSELL, _at 1734
Nineteenth Avenue, San Francisco, California. Descriptive circulars
sent free, upon request_.

_This Book_

_is one of an edition of four hundred and fifty (450) numbered and
signed copies, the impressions being taken upon hand-set type, which
was distributed upon completion of the presswork. In two hundred (200)
copies Exeter book-paper is used, leaf-size being 9-1/4 x 6-1/4 inches;
in two hundred (200) copies, buff California bond-paper, 8-3/8 x 5-1/2;
in fifty (50) copies, thin buff California bond-paper, 6 x 9._

THIS COPY _is No._ 26 _California bond-paper_.

(_Signed_)

Thomas C. Russell

_The_ SHIRLEY LETTERS _from_
CALIFORNIA _Mines_
_In_ 1851-52

_Being a_ SERIES _of_ TWENTY-THREE LETTERS _from_
DAME SHIRLEY
(MRS. LOUISE AMELIA KNAPP SMITH CLAPPE)
_To her_ SISTER _in_ MASSACHUSETTS
_And now_ REPRINTED _from the_
PIONEER MAGAZINE
_of_ 1854-55

WITH
SYNOPSES _of the_ LETTERS, _a_ FOREWORD, _and_ MANY
TYPOGRAPHICAL _and other_ CORRECTIONS
_and_ EMENDATIONS, _by_
THOMAS C. RUSSELL

_Together with_ "_An_ APPRECIATION" _by_
MRS. M. V. T. LAWRENCE

ILLUSTRATED

SAN FRANCISCO
PRINTED _by_ THOMAS C. RUSSELL, _at his_ PRIVATE PRESS
1734 NINETEENTH AVENUE
1922

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

_The_ Printer's Foreword _to this_ Edition

I SPEAK TO THE READER; LET THE WRITER LISTEN

Oriental Proverb (_adapted_)

CALIFORNIA, by Dr. Josiah Royce, in the handsome as well as handy
American Commonwealths series, is commonly regarded as the best short
history of California ever written, and particularly so as to the early
mining era. Dr. Royce knew his state, and a more competent writer could
hardly have been selected. Reviewing, in his history, almost everything
accessible, worthy of consideration, in connection with mining-camps,
it is noteworthy that the Doctor has much to say concerning the Shirley
Letters. Thus (p. 344),--

Fortune has preserved to us from the pen of a very intelligent
woman, who writes under an assumed name, a marvelously skillful and
undoubtedly truthful history of a mining community during a brief
period, first of cheerful prosperity, and then of decay and
disorder. The wife of a physician, and herself a well-educated New
England woman, "Dame Shirley," as she chooses to call herself, was
the right kind of witness to describe for us the social life of a
mining camp from actual experience. This she did in the form of
letters written on the spot to her own sister, and collected for
publication some two or three years later. Once for all, allowing
for the artistic defects inevitable in a disconnected series of
private letters, these "Shirley" letters form the best account of
an early mining camp that is known to me. For our real insight into
the mining life as it was, they are, of course, infinitely more
helpful to us than the perverse romanticism of a thousand such
tales as Mr. Bret Harte's, tales that, as the world knows, were not
the result of any personal experience of really primitive
conditions.

And in a foot-note on page 345 the Doctor says, in part,--

She is quite unconscious of the far-reaching moral and social
significance of much that she describes. Many of the incidents
introduced are such as imagination could of itself never suggest,
in such an order and connection. There is no mark of any conscious
seeking for dramatic effect. The moods that the writer expresses
indicate no remote purpose, but are the simple embodiment of the
thoughts of a sensitive mind, interested deeply in the wealth of
new experiences. The letters are charmingly unsentimental; the
style is sometimes a little stiff and provincial, but is on the
whole very readable.

No typographical or other changes are made in printing these extracts
from Dr. Royce's history, and as typographical style is involved in
noticing further the Doctor's review of the Shirley Letters, it is
proper to say here that his volume was printed at the Riverside Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts,--a press that, in the words of a writer on
matters of typographical style, "maintained the reputation of being one
of the three or four most painstaking establishments in the world."
Such places are few and far between, unlike the "book and job printing
establishments" that, like the poor, are always with us, and where no
_book_ was ever printed.

After having so fittingly introduced Shirley to his readers, it is
unfortunate that the Doctor is not always accurate in his citation of
the facts as printed in the Letters. Thus on page 347 of his history,
he says that the wife of the landlord of the Empire Hotel at Rich Bar
was "yellow-complexioned and care-worn." She does not appear to have
been a care-worn person. Shirley says of her (post, p. 39),--

Mrs. B. is a gentle and amiable looking woman, about twenty-five
years of age. She is an example of the terrible wear and tear to
the complexion in crossing the plains, hers having become, through
exposure at that time, of a dark and permanent yellow, anything but
becoming. I will give you a key to her character, which will
exhibit it better than weeks of description. She took a nursing
babe, eight months old, from her bosom, and left it with two other
children, almost infants, to cross the plains in search of gold!

The Doctor says, "The woman cooked for all the boarders herself," and
in the preceding sentence states, "The baby, six months old, kicked and
cried in a champagne-basket cradle." Shirley does not use the word
"boarders." The baby was only two weeks old. With the details of the
birth of this baby omitted, Shirley's account of these matters is (p.
40, post),--

When I arrived she was cooking supper for some half a dozen people,
while her really pretty boy, who lay kicking furiously in his
champagne-basket cradle, and screaming with a six-months-old-baby
power, had, that day, completed just two weeks of his earthly
pilgrimage.... He is an astonishingly large and strong child, holds
his head up like a six-monther, and has but one failing,--a too
evident and officious desire to inform everybody, far and near, at
all hours of the night and day, that his lungs are in a perfectly
sound and healthy condition.

Dr. Royce (p. 347) tells of the funeral of one of the four women
residing at Rich Bar at the time of Shirley's arrival, which was only a
few days prior to the death, and they had not met. The funeral service
was held at the log-cabin residence, which had "one large opening in
the wall to admit light." The "large opening" was not, in the first
intention, to admit light. Shirley says (post, p. 70),--

It has no window, all the light admitted entering through an
aperture where there _will_ be a door when it becomes cold enough
for such a luxury.

Describing the service, the Doctor says, in part,--

After a long and wandering impromptu prayer by somebody, a prayer
which "Shirley" found disagreeable (since she herself was a
churchwoman, and missed the burial service), the procession,
containing twenty men and three women, set out.

Shirley was not, at that time, a churchwoman, and her account of the
prayer, etc., is,--

About twenty men, with the three women of the place, had assembled
at the funeral. An extempore prayer was made, filled with all the
peculiarities usual to that style of petition. Ah, how different
from the soothing verses of the glorious burial service of the
church!

It may not be inappropriate here to note that the baby referred to in
the two immediately preceding pages is none other than the original of
The Luck in Bret Harte's Luck of Roaring Camp. How the funeral scene as
described by Shirley was adapted by this master of short-story writing,
and how skillfully he combined it with the birth of The Luck, may be
perceived in the two paragraphs following.

[Shirley, post, p. 70.] On a board, supported by two butter-tubs,
was extended the body of the dead woman, covered with a sheet. By
its side stood the coffin, of unstained pine, lined with white
cambric.

[The Luck of Roaring Camp, Overland, vol. i, p. 184.] Beside the
low bunk or shelf, on which the figure of the mother was starkly
outlined below the blankets, stood a pine table. On this a
candle-box was placed, and within it, swathed in staring red
flannel, lay the last arrival at Roaring Camp.

Bancroft (History of California, vol. vii, p. 724), speaking of early
California literature, says,--

Mining life in California furnished inexhaustible material;... and
almost every book produced in the golden era gave specimens more or
less entertaining of the wit and humor developed by the struggle
with homelessness, physical suffering, and mental gloom. And when,
perchance, a writer had never heard original tales of the kind he
felt himself expected to relate, he took them at second-hand....
Even the most powerful of Bret Harte's stories borrowed their
incidents from the letters of Mrs. Laura A. K. Clapp, who under the
nom de plume of 'Shirley,' wrote a series of letters published in
the _Pioneer Magazine_, 1851-2. The 'Luck of Roaring Camp' was
suggested by incidents related in Letter II., p. 174-6 of vol. i.
of the _Pioneer_. In Letter XIX., p. 103-10 of vol. iv., is the
suggestion of the 'Outcasts of Poker Flat.' Mrs. Clapp's simple
epistolary style narrates the facts, and Harte's exquisite style
imparts to them the glamour of imagination.

The temptation cannot be resisted, at this point, to pursue the history
of The Luck of Roaring Camp a little further. The reader will kindly
remember that no changes are made in printing extracts. Mr. T. Edgar
Pemberton, in his Bret Harte: A Treatise and a Tribute (London, 1900),
says, in referring to criticism of the story when it was first in
type,--

Mr. Noah Brooks has recorded this strange incident as follows:--

'Perhaps I may be pardoned,' he says, 'for a brief reference to an
odd complication that arose while _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ was
being put into type in the printing office where _The Overland
Monthly_ was prepared for publication. A young lady who served as
proof-reader in the establishment had been somewhat shocked by the
scant morals of the mother of Luck, and when she came to the scene
where Kentuck, after reverently fondling the infant, said, "he
wrastled with my finger, the d----d little cuss," the indignant
proof-reader was ready to throw up her engagement rather than go
any further with a story so wicked and immoral. There was
consternation throughout the establishment, and the head of the
concern went to the office of the publisher with the virginal
proof-reader's protest. Unluckily, Mr. Roman was absent from the
city. Harte, when notified of the obstacle raised in the way of
_The Luck of Roaring Camp_, manfully insisted that the story must
be printed as he wrote it, or not at all. Mr. Roman's _locum
tenens_ in despair brought the objectionable manuscript around to
my office and asked my advice. When I had read the sentence that
had caused all this turmoil, having first listened to the tale of
the much-bothered temporary publisher, I surprised him by a burst
of laughter. It seemed to me incredible that such a tempest in a
tea-cup could have been raised by Harte's bit of character
sketching. But, recovering my gravity, I advised that the whole
question should await Mr. Roman's return. I was sure that he would
never consent to any "editing" of Harte's story. This was agreed
to, and when the publisher came back, a few days later, the embargo
was removed. _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ was printed as it was
written, and printing office and vestal proof-reader survived the
shock.'

It is amazing to think that, but for the determination and
self-confidence of quite a young author, a story that has gladdened
and softened the hearts of thousands,--a story that has drawn
welcome smiles and purifying tears from all who can appreciate its
deftly-mingled humour and pathos,--a story that has been a boon to
humanity--might have been sacrificed to the shallow ruling of a
prudish 'young-lady' proof-reader, and a narrow-minded, pharisaical
deacon-printer!

It is appalling to think what might have happened if through
nervousness or modesty the writer had been frightened by the
premature criticisms of this precious pair.

The "deacon-printer" mentioned by Pemberton was Jacob Bacon, a fine
specimen of the printer of the latter half of the last century. He was
the junior partner of the firm of Towne and Bacon, the printers of
Harte's _first_ volume, The Lost Galleon. Mr. Towne (not _Tane_, as
spelled in Merwin's Life of Bret Harte) obtained judgment in Boston for
the printing of that volume. (See further, Mrs. T. B. Aldrich's
Crowding Memories, as to satisfaction of judgment.)

A half-tone portrait of the "prudish 'young-lady' proof-reader" (what a
lacerating taunt!) is printed in the Bret Harte Memorial Number of the
Overland (September, 1902).

The proof-readers have not dealt kindly with The Luck of Roaring Camp;
but the first of that ilk to mutilate the story was also the worst, to
wit, the aforesaid "prudish 'young-lady' proof-reader."

Good usage in typography was utterly unknown to this young
lady,--punctuation, capitalization, the use of the hyphen in dividing
and compounding words. In practice she did not--perhaps could
not--recognize any distinction between a cipher and a lower-case _o_.
As to spelling, one may find "etherial," "azalias," "tessallated."

Noah Brooks, in the Overland Memorial Number, says (p. 203),--

He [Bret Harte] collected some half-dozen stories and poems and
they were printed in a volume entitled "The Luck of Roaring Camp
and Other Sketches," (1870.)

There were no poems printed in that volume. It was published in Boston
by Fields, Osgood, & Co. Printed at the University Press at Cambridge,
then unquestionably the best book-printing house in the United States,
of course many of the typographical errors were weeded out. This volume
was reprinted in London by John Camden Hotten.

It is to be regretted that the University Press was not more
painstaking in the proof-reading, for the Overland typographical
perversions persist in some instances to the present day. The reader is
not misled by the lubbering punctuation of the sentence, "She was a
coarse, and, it is to be feared, a very sinful woman." The usage in
such a construction is, "She was a coarse, and it is to be feared a
very sinful, woman." But note where the sense is affected:--

Cherokee Sal was sinking fast. Within an hour she had climbed, as
it were, that rugged road that led to the stars, and so passed out
of Roaring Camp, its sin and shame forever.

Cherokee Sal could not possibly be the sin and shame of Roaring Camp
forever; hence the sense calls for a comma after "shame," in the
extract. It is gratifying to note that the comma is used in the Hotten
reprint.

Another egregious blunder which has persisted is the printing of the
word "past" for "passed," in the extract below.

Then he [Kentuck] walked up the gulch, past the cabin, still
whistling with demonstrative unconcern. At a large redwood tree he
paused and retraced his steps, and again passed the cabin.

It remained for a proof-reader at the Riverside Press to reconstruct
the sentence by deleting the comma after the word "gulch"; thus, "the
gulch past the cabin." That Kentuck "again passed the cabin" seems not
to have been considered. Hence, in the Houghton Mifflin Company's
printings of The Luck of Roaring Camp, the last error is worse than the
first.

These errors are not venial. Those that are such have not been
mentioned, as they occur in almost every book, and appear to be
unavoidable. Other errors, evincing a lack of knowledge of good usage
in book-typography, must also pass unnoticed.

The Luck of Roaring Camp having been disposed of, consideration of Dr.
Royce's review of the Shirley Letters will be resumed.

The Doctor, on page 350 of his work, says, "In her little library she
had a Bible, a prayer-book, Shakespeare, and Lowell's 'Fable for the
Critics,' with two or three other books." Shirley (p. 100, post) says
she had a--

Bible and prayer-book, Shakespeare, Spenser, Coleridge, Shelley,
Keats, Lowell's Fable for Critics, Walton's Complete Angler, and
some Spanish books.

The poet Spenser's name was spelled with a _c_ in the Pioneer, but the
article "the" was not used before "Critics," as in the extract from
Royce,--an unpardonable error in a book printed in Cambridge, and at
the Riverside Press too.

The Spanish books mentioned by Shirley were evidently not neglected by
her, and her acquaintance with and friendship for the Spanish-speaking
population scattered along the banks of the Rio de las Plumas must have
made her very familiar with their tongue. In reading these Letters one
cannot fail to perceive how fittingly Spanish words and phrases are
interwoven with her own English. At the time these Letters were
written, many Spanish words were a part of the California vernacular,
but to Shirley belongs the honor of introducing them into the
literature of California; hence, in printing the Letters, such words
are not italicized, as they usually are, by printers who should know
better.

Dr. Royce also says on page 350, "Prominent in the society of the Bar
was a trapper, of the old Fremont party, who told blood-curdling tales
of Indian fights." (See post, p. 111.) It is singular that the Doctor
has failed to identify this trapper with the well-known James P.
Beckwourth, whose Life and Adventures (Harpers, New York, 1856) was
written from his own dictation by Thomas D. Bonner, a justice of the
peace in Butte County in 1852. His name is preserved in "Beckwourth
Pass." He first entered this pass probably in the spring of the year
1851, although 1850 is the year given in his Life. The Western Pacific
Railroad utilizes the pass for its tracks entering California, and
through it came the pioneers of whom Shirley has much to say in Letter
the Twenty-second.

Among punishments for thefts, the Doctor, on page 351, speaks of a
"decidedly barbarous case of hanging" for that offense. It is referred
to here for the reason that in the sequel of the hanging Bret Harte
found more than a suggestion for his finale of The Outcasts of Poker
Flat. Both are reprinted here for the purpose of comparison. Shirley
says (post, p. 157),--

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.

The finale of The Outcasts of Poker Flat follows, in part, with no
other changes than those of punctuation and capitalization.

They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when
voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when
pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could
scarcely have told, from the equal peace that dwelt upon them,
which was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat
recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still locked in each
other's arms. But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest
pine-trees, they found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a
bowie-knife.... And pulseless and cold, with a derringer by his
side and a bullet in his heart, though still calm as in life,
beneath the snow lay he who was at once the strongest and yet the
weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.

The phrase, "though still calm as in life," in the last sentence of the
extract immediately preceding, is one that would seem to invite the
challenge of a proof-reader. It is passed without further notice.

Dr. Royce is not at his best in reviewing Letter the Nineteenth. The
suggestion for The Outcasts of Poker Flat was found therein by Bret
Harte, as previously noted. On page 354 the Doctor says,--

A "majestic-looking Spaniard" had quarreled with an Irishman about
a Mexican girl ("Shirley" for the first time, I think, thus showing
a knowledge of the presence at Indian Bar of those women who seem,
in the bright and orderly days of her first arrival, to have been
actually unknown in the camp). The Mexican, having at last stabbed
and killed the other, fled to the hills.

It does not appear from the letter that a girl of any kind was involved
in this stabbing and death. Shirley distinguishes between the Spaniard
and the Mexican; the Doctor does not. As to the presence of "those
women," Shirley, without commenting, sheds much light upon that
subject, as will be perceived from the following extracts. Dr. Royce's
review does not coincide with the facts.

Seven miners from Old Spain, enraged at the cruel treatment which
their countrymen had received on the Fourth,... had united for the
purpose of taking revenge on seven Americans. All well armed,...
intending to challenge each one his man,... on arriving at Indian
Bar ... they drank a most enormous quantity of champagne and
claret. Afterwards they proceeded to [a vile resort kept by an
Englishman], when one of them commenced a playful conversation with
one of his countrywomen. This enraged the Englishman, who instantly
struck the Spaniard a violent blow.... Thereupon ensued a spirited
fight, which ... ended without bloodshed.... Soon after,... Tom
Somers, who is said always to have been a dangerous person when in
liquor, without any apparent provocation struck Domingo (one of the
original seven) a violent blow.... The latter,... mad with wine,
rage, and revenge, without an instant's pause drew his knife and
inflicted a fatal wound upon his insulter. [Post, p. 271.]

In the bakeshop, which stands next door to our cabin, young Tom
Somers lay straightened for the grave (he lived but fifteen minutes
after he was wounded), while over his dead body a Spanish woman was
weeping and moaning in the most piteous and heartrending manner.
[Post, p. 264.]

Domingo, with a Mexicana hanging upon his arm, and brandishing
threateningly the long, bloody knife,... was parading up and down
the street unmolested.... The [Americans] rallied and made a rush
at the murderer, who immediately plunged into the river and swam
across,... and without doubt is now safe in Mexico. [Post, p. 263.]

A disregard of exactness is not peculiar to Dr. Royce. Secondary
authorities are generally open to criticism. Of the authenticity of
Shirley's facts there can be no question. Dr. Royce recognized this,
while subjecting the work of other writers to severe scrutiny. But
Shirley's printer did her much evil. It is not necessary here to say
much concerning trade usages in making an author's manuscript
presentable in type,--the essentially different ways of and differences
between the job, the newspaper, and the book printer. Shirley's
letters, not having been written for publication, required exceptional
care while being put in type, and especially so since the manuscript
was not prepared for the press. It is amusing to read what the printers
of the Pioneer have to say of themselves.

Our facilities for doing FINE BOOK WORK, are very great, possessing
as we do, large founts of new type, and an ADAMS POWER PRESS. We
refer to the Pioneer Magazine, as a specimen. We have in use a
MAMMOTH PRESS, which gives us a great advantage in the execution of
the LARGEST SIZE MAMMOTH POSTERS, in colors or plain.

In the estimation of the printers, the materiel was the principal
thing; the personnel, not worthy of mention,--and it so happened that
it wasn't, for, judging from the typographical inaccuracies of the
Pioneer, the compositors were of a very low order of intelligence, and
if a proof-reader was employed, he assuredly stood high in their
estimation, as he evidently caused them but little trouble.

Much has been said by writers on matters typographical as to what is
meet and necessary in the reprinting of a book, and much more on
literary blunders and mistakes. Some printers are rash, and perpetrate
a worse blunder than that attempted to be corrected in reprinting.
Worse than such people are the amateur proof-readers, who generally run
to extremes, that is, they either cannot see a blunder, and hence pass
it unchallenged, or else they manifest a disposition to challenge and
"improve" everything they do not comprehend, and, knowing nothing of
typographical usages or style, they are a decidedly malignant quantity.

Every old printer knows, what is often said, that English is a
grammarless tongue, and that no grammarian ever wrote a sentence worth
reading. No proof-reader, with the experience of a printer behind him,
will change a logically expressed idea so as to make it conform to
grammatical rules, nor will he harass the author thereof with
suggestions looking to that end.

Critical readers of these Letters must ever bear in mind the fact that
Shirley was not writing for publication, and that the printer of this
edition had no desire to and did not alter Shirley's text to suit his
ideas of what was fitting and proper, further than to smooth or round
out in many instances rugged or careless construction. Punctuation,
hyphenization, capitalization, italicizing, spelling, required much,
and of course received much, attention.

In some instances where Shirley does not express her meaning clearly,
and reconstruction seemed necessary, no change was made. Singularly,
this was the case in the first sentence of the first letter.

I can easily imagine, dear M., the look of large wonder which
gleams from your astonished eyes when they fall upon the date of
this letter.

M. could be astonished but once, but the language used conveys the idea
of wonder arising each time the letter is read; then, again, it is the
place-name, and not the date, that is to cause wonder to gleam from
astonished eyes, as the context shows.

Where reconstruction was not needed to make the meaning clear, and this
could be done by the insertion of a word or phrase, or by some other
simple emendation, changes were generally made. The extract (post, p.
11) following is printed just as it appeared in the Pioneer.

As a frame to the graceful picture, on one side rose the Buttes,
that group of hills so piquant and saucy; and on the other tossing
to Heaven the everlasting whiteness of their snow wreathed
foreheads, stood, sublime in their very monotony, the glorious
Sierra Nevada.

Besides changes in capitalization and punctuation, the words, "the
summits of," are inserted before "the glorious Sierra." Compare Bret
Harte's lines,--

Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below;
The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
Their minarets of snow.

By the word "Sierras" the mountain-range called the Sierra Nevada is
not meant, but merely teeth-like summits thereof, which uplift their
snow-clad peaks, or "minarets." The Spanish word "sierra" means, in
English, a saw, and also a ridge of mountains and craggy rocks.
"Nevada" means here, in connection with "Sierra," snowy. Thus, "the
snowy ridge of mountains and craggy rocks," or, to express the meaning
more clearly in English, the snowy serrated mountain-range. Bret
Harte's capitalization of "Sierras" may be safely challenged. The lines
are from his poem, Dickens in Camp.

The Buttes mentioned by Shirley are the Marysville Buttes. "Butte" is
French, and descriptive, and French trappers bestowed the name.

Shirley sometimes uses an adverb instead of an adjective. Thus on page
332, speaking of a tame frog on the bar at a rancho, she says,--

You cannot think how comically [comic] it looked hopping about the
bar, quite as much at home as a tame squirrel would have been.

An old San Francisco printer once heard a newspaperman say that this
little incident furnished the suggestion to Mark Twain for his Jumping
Frog of Calaveras, but, unfortunately, regarded the remark as of no
more importance than much other gossip current among printers and
newspapermen.

Shirley, like many another writer, used marks of quotation improperly,
when the language of the author cited was altered or adapted. Worse
than this are many instances of gross misquotation. In the former case,
the quotation-marks were deleted; in the latter, accuracy was the aim.

On page 79 quotation-marks are deleted, the language used being
adapted, thus, "clothe themselves with curses as with a garment."
Compare Psalms cix, 18, "He clothed himself with cursing like as with
his garment."

On page 101 a correction is made; thus, "As thy day is, so shall thy
strength be" (Deut. xxxiii, 25). In the Letters this read, "As thy
days, so," etc.

On page 268 quotation-marks are deleted, as the language used is
adapted, and in a strict sense is also inaccurate; thus, "The _woman_
tempted me, and I did eat." Compare Genesis iii, 12, 13.

12. And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she
gave me of the tree, and _I_ did eat.

13. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou
hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did
eat.

Blunders and mistakes of all sorts might be set out, but it is not
deemed advisable to pursue this matter any further. It is, however,
necessary to say something further of THE PIONEER itself, and the
paper-cover title of the May, 1855, number is reprinted here, with an
outline drawing of the crude woodcut vignette printed in the original.
It was impossible to secure a satisfactory facsimile of the title. The
names of some of the agents of the magazine are of historical interest.

_The_ PIONEER

_or_

California Monthly Magazine

[Illustration]

_May, 1855_

SAN FRANCISCO
PUBLISHED _by_ LE COUNT & STRONG
Nos. 111 & 113 MONTGOMERY STREET

_For_ SALE _at all the_ BOOKSTORES _in the_ CITY

AGENTS

J. W. JONES, Benicia; CHAS. BINNEY, Sacramento; R. A. EDDY & CO.,
Marysville; GEO. VINCENT & CO., Coloma; LANGTON & BRO., Downieville; A.
ROMAN, Shasta; ROMAN & PARKER, Yreka; NASH & DAVIS, Placerville; ADAMS
& CO., Jackson; ADAMS & CO., Georgetown; ADAMS & CO., Mud Springs; C. O.
BURTON, Stockton; CANNADAY & COOK, Sonora; A. A. HUNNEWELL, Columbia;
J. COFFIN, Mokelumne Hill; MILLER & CO., Chinese Camp; ELLIOTT REED,
San Jose; ALEXANDER S. TAYLOR, Monterey; R. K. SWEETLAND, Volcano;
LANGTON & BRO., Sierra County; DR. STEINBERGER, agent Adams & Co.,
Oregon; HENRY M. WHITNEY, Honolulu, S.I.

MONSON & VALENTINE, Printers, 124 Sacramento Street

But few copies of the Pioneer are known to be in existence. Odd numbers
are sometimes found, but these are generally in a mutilated condition,
while the bound volumes lack the advertisements.

The first number was issued in January, 1854, and the last in December,
1855. The first letter of the Shirley series appeared in the initial
number, and the last one in the final issue. The magazine seems to have
been well received in the East, and the Eastern magazines reviewed it
very favorably.

Of Shirley herself it is not necessary to say much in this Foreword.
She was a typical Massachusetts girl, although born in New Jersey, the
residence of the family in the latter state being merely temporary, as
is clearly shown by her correspondence. A letter from Miss Katherine
Powell, librarian of the Amherst Town Library, sheds some light on the
early associations of Shirley. In part, she says,--

In spite of widespread inquiries, I have been able to get ... [but
little] concerning Louise Amelia Knapp Smith. There are no people
now living here who knew her even by hearsay. The records of
Amherst Academy show that she attended that institution in 1839 and
1840.... Miss Smith's name adds another to the long list of writers
who have lived here at one time or another, and Amherst Academy has
added many names to that list. Two of them--Emily Dickinson the
poet, and Emily Fowler Ford--were schoolmates of Miss Smith. Mrs.
Ford was the granddaughter of Noah Webster (an Amherst man [one of
the founders of Amherst College]) and daughter of Professor Fowler
[the phrenologist], who wrote several books. Eugene Field was, some
years later, a student of the old Academy, and in his poem, My
Playmates, he mentioned by their real names a number of his old
schoolmates. Helen Hunt Jackson was a contemporary of Miss Smith
here, and, although she did not attend the Academy, must have been
well known to her.

Amherst, it should be said, was the home-town of Shirley's family, and
to it she often fondly refers in the Letters. It is not cause for
wonder that she is not now remembered in Amherst. Her correspondence
shows that the members of the family, although devotedly attached to
one another, were inclined to disperse.

Mrs. Mary Viola Tingley Lawrence has kindly permitted the printing in
this volume of a paper prepared by her to be read before a literary
society, containing much that is interesting of Shirley's life. Mrs.
Lawrence is well known among the _literati_ of San Francisco. She was a
contributor to the old Overland. What is of more interest here is the
fact that she was a favorite pupil of Shirley, and later her most
intimate friend in California. It was from a selection of poetry
gathered by Mrs. Lawrence that Bret Harte obtained the larger portion
of his selection entitled "Outcroppings" (San Francisco, 1866), a
title, by the way, claimed by Mrs. Lawrence as her own.

Rich Bar and Indian Bar, in Butte County at the time the Shirley
Letters were written, are now in Plumas County, consequent upon a
change of the county boundary lines. There are two Rich Bars on the
Feather River, the minor one being on the Middle Fork, and oftentimes
mistaken for the one made famous by Shirley. James Graham Fair, one of
the earliest multimillionaires of California, and United States Senator
from Nevada, panned out his first sackful of gold at Rich Bar, and
probably at the time Shirley was writing her Letters. Many other men,
whose names are familiar to Californians, also delved into the earth at
this historic spot, which is now, in railroad "literature," called
"Rich." Like many another California clipped place-name, the new name
has not the glamour of the old, which, in the words of Shirley, was "a
most taking name."

In closing this Foreword, the printer desires to emphasize the fact
that the typesetting and presswork of this book are entirely his own
work. No one acquainted with the methods employed in a legitimate
book-printing house will fail to recognize the fact that it is well
nigh impossible to print a _book_ without possession of the minute
technical knowledge essential in each department. Hence the most
skillful book-printer is distrustful of himself, unless supported by
experienced craftsmen, and more especially by time-tried proof-readers.
For many favors extended while the Letters were in press, thanks are
due, and are now acknowledged, to Milton J. Ferguson, the librarian of
the State Library at Sacramento, California, who was never-failing in
either service or patience.

Dame Shirley, _the_ Writer _of these_ Letters

An Appreciation

BEING _a_ PAPER _prepared by_ MRS. MARY VIOLA TINGLEY LAWRENCE _to be
read before a_ SAN FRANCISCO _literary society on_ MRS. LOUISE AMELIA
KNAPP SMITH CLAPPE (DAME SHIRLEY)

The Shirley Letters, written in the pioneer days of 1851 and 1852, were
hailed throughout the country as the first-born of California
literature. Mrs. Clappe, their author, was the one woman who depicted
that era of romantic life, dipping her pen into a rich personal
experience, and writing with a clarity and beauty born of an alert
comprehensive mind and a rare sense of refinement and character.

The Letters had been written to a loved sister in the East, but
Ferdinand C. Ewer, a _litterateur_ of San Francisco, a close friend,
fell upon them by chance, and, realizing their historic value, urged
that they be published in the Pioneer, of which he was editor. These
Shirley Letters, thus published, brought the new West to the wondering
East, and showed to those who had not made the venture, the courage,
the fervor, the beauty, the great-heartedness, that made up life in the
new El Dorado. Shirley's sympathetic Interpretation of their tumultuous
experience cheered the Argonauts by throwing before their eyes the
drama in which they were unconsciously the swash-buckling, the tragic,
or the romantic actors, and helped to crystallize the growing love for
the new land, which love turned fortune and adventure seekers into
home-makers and empire-builders.

This quickly recognized author became the leader of the first _salon_
the Golden West ever knew, and one of the foremost influences in
California's social and intellectual life, by force of a high
intelligence and a heart and soul that were a noble woman's.

Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe came to light in Elizabeth, New
Jersey, in 1819. Her father, Moses Smith, was a man of high scholarly
attainment, and by her mother, Lois Lee, she could claim an equally
gifted ancestry, and a close kinship with Julia Ward Howe. As a young
girl, together with several brothers and sisters, she was left
parentless, but there was a comfortable estate, and a faithful
guardian, the Hon. Osman Baker, a Member of Congress I believe, who saw
to it that they received the very best mental and physical training.
Shirley was educated at Amherst and Charlestown, Massachusetts, and at
Amherst was the family home.

At that day the epistolary art was a finished accomplishment, and in
childhood she evidenced a ready use of the quill pen. Later on, she
maintained correspondence with brilliant minds, who challenged her to
her best. At the same time she was pursuing her English studies, to
which were added French, German, and Italian. She had but little time
for the trivial social amenities, but her frequent missives from her
relatives, the Lees and Wards of New York City and Boston, and her
enjoyable visits to their gay homes, broke the strain of mental grind,
and kept her in touch with the fashionable world. Her communications in
the forties disclose a relation to men and women of culture, whose
letters are colorful of people, places, and events, and through them we
reach an intimate inside of her own self. Those faded, musty-smelling
epistles, with pressed flowers, from an old attic, reveal a rich kind
of distinct and charming personalities.

Shirley, small, fair, and golden-haired, was not physically strong, and
her careful guardian often ordered a change of climate. Sometimes she
sojourned in the South. In her migrations she might employ a carriage,
or venture on a canal-boat, but usually the stage-coach carried her. It
was on one of those bits of travel that she met Mr. A. H. Everett of
Massachusetts, a brother of Edward Everett, a noted author, and popular
throughout the country as a lecturer. He had been charge d'affaires in
the Netherlands, and minister to Spain. An intimate relationship,
chiefly by correspondence, was established between this gifted girl and
this brilliant gentleman. His long letters from Louisiana sometimes
were written wholly in French. From Washington, D.C., he writes that
the mission of United States minister to a foreign court has been
offered him, but it fails to tempt him away from his life of letters.
However, later on, it comes about that he accepts the mission of United
States commissioner to the more alluring China, and his long letters to
her from there, as they had been from other foreign lands, were most
entertaining. This rare man grows to be very fond of his young and
brilliant correspondent, and signs himself, "Yours faithfully and
affectionately." But he was well on in years, and she looks upon him
more as a father than as a suitor, and he so understands it. He commits
himself enough to say how much it would be to him to have her near him
as an attachee, and when she hints of her engagement to a young
physician, he jealously begs to know every detail concerning the happy
man.

Shirley married Dr. Fayette Clappe, and in 1849, with the spirit of
romance and the fire of enthusiasm, the joyful young Argonauts set sail
for California in the good ship Manilla.

They found the primitive San Francisco enthralling, but a fire swept
away the new city, and tent-life was accepted as one of many
picturesque experiences. Soon, however, the Doctor's shingle was again
hung out.

Quickly buildings went up, and the little lady with golden curls to her
waist went about, jostling the motley crowd of people, and finding
concern in the active city front, in the gaudy shops, and in the open
faro-banks with their exposed piles of nuggets and bags of gold-dust
freshly dug from the earth.

There was the ever-beckoning to the hills of treasure, with their
extravagant stories of adventure, but the professional man was anchored
in the more prosy city, and buckled down to a commonplace existence.
The exhilarating ozone from the ocean, the wind blowing over the vast
area of sand, the red-flannel-shirted miner recklessly dumping out
sacks of gold-dust with which to pay his board-bill or to buy a pair of
boots, with maybe a nugget for Dr. Clappe when he eased a trivial
pain,--all these thrills were calls to the gold-filled Mother Earth.
Finally, Dr. Clappe's ill-health drove him to the Feather River,--a
high altitude, fifty miles from the summit of the Sierra Nevada, and
the highest point of gold-diggings. There he soon recovered, and to her
joy he wrote his wife to join him. And she had varying experiences in
transit to the prospective home, which was at Rich Bar,--rich indeed,
where a miner unearthed thirty-three pounds of gold in eight days, and
others panned out fifteen hundred dollars in one wash of dirt.

The sojourn at the gold-camp in the summers and winters of 1851 and
1852, with its tremendous and varied incidents and experiences, was a
compelling call to Shirley's facile pen. Here was her mine. Out of her
brain, out of her soul, out of her heart of gold, out of her wealth of
understanding of and love for her fellow-men, gratefully sprang those
SHIRLEY LETTERS that have enriched the field of letters, and, reaching
beyond the grasp of worldly gain, have set her enduringly in the hearts
of mankind.

Who can tell how far-reaching and inspiring were those illuminating
pages, those vividly depicted scenes enacted on the crowded stages of
the golden-lined bars of the famous Feather River! Bret Harte reads her
graphic and pathetic account of the fallen woman and the desperate men
being driven out of camp, and lo! we have the gripping tale of The
Outcasts of Poker Flat; and from another of her recitals came the
inspiration that set him to work on that entertaining story, The Luck
of Roaring Camp. And her incidental mention of the pet frog hopping on
the bar of the hotel, in the midst of a group of onlooking miners,--was
it the setting for Mark Twain's Jumping Frog of Calaveras?

During their sojourn at Rich and Indian bars, Shirley and her husband
became rich in experience. They folded their tent and left with
depleted purse, but they had righteously invested their God-bestowed
talents. There they had freely given the best of themselves; they were
leaving the imperishable impress of high ideals.

Upon their return to San Francisco the couple rejoined delightful
friends, and established a home. But reverses of fortune came, and
Shirley found it necessary to put her accomplishments to the practical
purpose of gaining a livelihood. By the advice of her friend Ferdinand
C. Ewer she entered the San Francisco public school department, where
for long years she taught, notably in the high schools.

Shirley was small in build, with a thin face and a finely shaped head.
Her limbs were perfect in symmetry. As a girl, doubtless she had claim
to a delicate beauty. She now showed the wear and tear of her mountain
experience, coupled with an accumulation of heart-breaking trouble. She
gave prodigally of all her gifts. She interpreted life and its arts to
all discerning pupils, and by the magic of her friendly intercourse won
their confidence. Quick to discover any unusual promise in a pupil, she
indefatigably and masterfully stirred up such a one to his or her best,
sometimes with remarks of approval, or by censuring recreancy with
stinging sarcasm, or with expressions of despair over infirmity of
purpose. Some of such scholars, notably among them Charles Warren
Stoddard, panned out gold in the field of letters. Many of her pupils,
including myself, absorbed much of her wonderful help, and it grew into
our subconsciousness and became a part of us. She was the long-time
friend of Bret Harte, and from her he gathered a wealth of knowledge
that served him well.

When Mr. Ewer was ordained in Grace Episcopal Church, San Francisco,
Shirley became a member of his parish, and together with his wife she
assisted him in the ministrations of good. Then this dependable friend,
Dr. Ewer, was discovered, with the result that he was called to a
church in New York at a salary of ten thousand dollars a year.

In addition to her daily teaching, Shirley, by request, established
evening classes in art and literature, for men and women, and once a
week she held her _salon_, drawing the best minds about her. She
appreciated the privilege of having a home in Mr. John Swett's family,
because of its intellectual atmosphere. Here scholarly notabilities
from near and far were entertained, among them Emerson, Agassiz, and
Julia Ward Howe.

Childless, Shirley took her niece, Genevieve Stebbins, and reared her
from babyhood to a splendid womanhood. She contributed freely to
entertainments for charity, by her Shakespearean readings and other
recitations, and happily prepared whole parties for private
theatricals. With such mental strain, she kept herself fit by Saturday
outings, in which were graciously included some of her pupils. At times
we went across the bay, in various directions, but oftenest we strove
through the sand to the ocean beach, stopping here and there to
botanize, and gather the sweet yellow and purple lupin, and to rest on
the limbs of the scrub-oaks. On the beach we roasted potatoes and made
coffee, and then ate ravenously. A happy gipsying it was, and she, the
queen, forgot her cares. Not a pebble at our feet, nor a floating
seaweed, nor a shell, nor a seal on the rock, but opened up an
instructive talk from our teacher, or started Charley Stoddard reciting
a poem, or set a girl singing. Before starting homeward, the whole
party, including Shirley, shoes and stockings off, waded into the surf,
and afterwards rested on the warm beds of sand. A fine comradeship,
that, and one that never died.

Shirley, I should also mention, wrote some respectable poetry. I have
fondly preserved, treasured, and cherished the original manuscript of a
poem written by her at the time Margaret Fuller Ossoli was lost by
shipwreck in 1850. This poem was included in my collection of
California poetry, but was not printed in Outcroppings. I append it to
this paper, of which it can hardly be considered an essential part.

I married and went to the mines, and our home was on the Mariposa
Grant. We lived on a bed of gold. Once, upon a visit to the city, I
found Shirley nervous and worn. Her vacation was about to begin. She
went home with me, and stayed in bed the first three days. Then she was
daily swung in a hammock under an oak. Soon we had horseback-rides, and
up the creek she again panned out gold. Later we set out in the
stage-coach for the hotel at the big Mariposa Grove. Mr. Lawrence put
us in charge of Mr. Galen Clark, a rare scholar, and the guardian of
the Big Tree Grove and of the Yosemite Valley. This charming man was
much interested in Shirley. From the hotel we took daily rides with him
through the great forest, and then made the twenty-five-mile
horseback-ride and found Mr. James M. Hutchings, of the Illustrated
California Magazine, awaiting us at the entrance to the valley. He
escorted us to his picturesque hotel, where he and his interesting wife
made our three weeks' stay most delightful. Down in the meadows we came
upon John Muir sawing logs. He dropped his work, and we three went
botanizing, and soon were learning all about the valley's formation as
he entrancingly talked. We met many tourists of distinction, and
Shirley forgot that she ever had a care, and on our way back she
galloped along recklessly.

At our home in Mariposa we invited friends to come and enjoy Shirley's
Shakespearean readings, chiefly comedy. In these Mr. Lawrence had a
happy part.

In time Shirley went to New York, to her niece, Genevieve Stebbins, who
was successful in a delightful line of art-work. Before leaving San
Francisco, her faithful pupils and other friends gave a musicale and
realized about two thousand dollars, which was presented her as a
loving gift. In the great metropolis her genius was recognized soon
after her arrival, and she was importuned to give lectures on art and
literature. The Field family, who delightedly discovered her, took her
to Europe, where she visited all the art-galleries, a treat that had
been a lifelong heart's desire. In New York she had at once made her
home with Dr. Ewer's widow and children, but, in the end, she went to
Morristown, New Jersey, where, it was said, she again happily met and
renewed her friendship with Bret Harte's accomplished and delightful
wife and her attractive children, while Bret Harte himself was
sojourning in Europe, a successful author. Mrs. John F. Swift, her
long-time appreciative friend, Charley Stoddard, myself, and others,
contributed to her pleasure by letters till the close of her perfect
life at Morristown, New Jersey, on February 9, 1906. No other woman has
left a more lasting impress on the California community. But back to
Rich Bar! Back to the gold-fields! DAME SHIRLEY is abroad, and again
she is weaving her wizard spell!

"ALONE"

A REMINISCENCE OF MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI

_By_ SHIRLEY LEE

Beneath thy spirit-eyes I stand alone,
Nor deem thee of the dead
As mournfully I gaze, sad-hearted one,
On that calm brow and head.

The starry crown of genius could not save
From woman's gift of grief;
The moaning billows o'er thy breast that have
Emblem thy life too brief.

O Margaret! my weak heart-pulses shiver
In wordless woe for thee,
Thy wasted tenderness, thy love that never
Might its fruition see.

Thou hadst no youth, O wondrous child! no youth
Haloed thy later life;
Sternly thy girl heart sought its solemn truth
In battle and in strife.

In thine own Northern home didst thou not live
"Alone," always "alone"?
What heart to thine uplifted heart could give
Ever an answering tone?

In suffering, labor, strife, we saw thee stand
With lips that would not moan,
While shone thy regal brow and eyes with grand
Aspirings all thine own.

At last among thy Romans thou didst find
A shrine for that large heart;
It understood thee not, the Northern mind,
But coldly shrunk apart,

When those pale lips--from whence, an hour agone,
Flew out, like rifted light,
Winged words of wit--murmured their wailed "Alone"
To the pitying midnight.

And I have read thy life, its mournful story
Of loneliness and blight;
But o'er its close there shines a solemn glory,
A setting star's trailed light.

Margaret! white-robed, thy hair unbound, thy veil,
Most like a bride wert thou
When Ocean clasped thee, and, with lips all pale
And icy, kissed thy brow.

And lovely as a white unfolded blossom
Lay the child Angelo,
Hushed to his dreamless flower-sleep on that bosom
Which would not let him go.

Husband, and wife, and child together flutter
Up to the great white throne,
Where nevermore may Margaret Fuller utter
That piteous "Alone!"

_The_ Contents

_The_ PRINTER'S FOREWORD _to this_ EDITION PAGE v

DAME SHIRLEY PAGE xxvii

BEING _a_ PAPER _prepared by_ MRS. MARY VIOLA TINGLEY LAWRENCE _to be
read before a_ SAN FRANCISCO _literary society_.

LETTER _the_ FIRST PART ONE PAGE 1

THE JOURNEY TO RICH BAR

A thousand people and but one physician. The author's husband seeks
health and business. Journey through deep snow, in midsummer, to reach
Rich Bar. The revivifying effect of mountain atmosphere. Arrival of
twenty-nine physicians in less than three weeks. The author's purpose
to leave San Francisco and join her husband at the mines. Direful
predictions and disapprobation of friends. Indelicacy of her position
among an almost exclusively male population. Indians, ennui, cold.
Leaves for Marysville. Scanty fare on way. Meets husband. Falls from
mule. An exhausting ride. A midnight _petit souper_ at Marysville.
Dr. C. leaves on muleback for Bidwell's Bar. The author follows in
springless wagon. Beautiful scenery. Marysville Buttes. Sierra Nevada.
Indian women, their near-nudity, beautiful limbs and lithe forms,
picturesqueness. Flower-seed gathering. Indian bread. Marvelous
handiwork of basketry. A dangerous precipice. A disclaimer of bravery.
Table Mountain. Arrival at Bidwell's Bar. Rejoins husband. Uninviting
quarters. Proceed to Berry Creek.

LETTER _the_ FIRST PART TWO PAGE 15

THE JOURNEY TO RICH BAR

A moonlit midsummer-night's ride on muleback. Joyous beginning. The
Indian trail lost. Camping out for the night. Attempts in morning to
find the trail. A trying ride in the fierce heat of midday. The trail
found. A digression of thirty miles. Lack of food, and seven more miles
to ride. To rest impossible. Mad joy when within sight of Berry Creek
Rancho. Congratulations upon escape from Indians on the trail.
Frenchman and wife murdered. The journey resumed. Arrival at the "Wild
Yankee's". A breakfast with fresh butter and cream. Indian bucks,
squaws, and papooses. Their curiosity. Pride of an Indian on his
ability to repeat one line of a song. Indian women. Extreme beauty of
their limbs; slender ankles and statuesque feet; haggardness of
expression and ugliness of features. Girl of sixteen, a "wildwood
Cleopatra," an exception to the general hideousness. The California
Indian not the Indian of the Leatherstocking tales. A stop at the
Buckeye Rancho. Start for Pleasant Valley Rancho. The trail again lost.
Camping out for the night. Growling bears. Arrive at Pleasant Valley
Rancho. Flea-haunted shanty. Beauty of the wilderness. Quail and deer.
The chaparrals, and their difficulty of penetration by the mules.
Escape from a rattlesnake. Descending precipitous hill on muleback.
Saddle-girth breaks. Harmless fall from the saddle. Triumphant entry
into Rich Bar. Tribute to mulekind. The Empire Hotel. "A huge shingle
palace."

LETTER _the_ SECOND PAGE 33

RICH BAR--ITS HOTELS AND PIONEER FAMILIES

The Empire Hotel, _the_ hotel of Rich Bar. The author safely
ensconced therein. California might be called the "Hotel State," from
the plenitude of its taverns, etc. The Empire the only two-story
building in Rich Bar, and the only one there having glass windows.
Built by gamblers for immoral purposes. The speculation a failure, its
occupants being treated with contempt or pity. Building sold for a few
hundred dollars. The new landlord of the Empire. The landlady, an
example of the wear and tear of crossing the plains. Left behind her
two children and an eight-months-old baby. Cooking for six people, her
two-weeks-old baby kicking and screaming in champagne-basket cradle.
"The sublime martyrdom of maternity". Left alone immediately after
infant's birth. Husband dangerously ill, and cannot help. A kindly
miner. Three other women at the Bar. The "Indiana girl". "Girl" a
misnomer. "A gigantic piece of humanity". "Dainty" habits and herculean
feats. A log-cabin family. Pretty and interesting children. "The
Miners' Home". Its petite landlady tends bar. "Splendid material for
social parties this winter."

LETTER _the_ THIRD PAGE 43

LIFE AND FORTUNE AT THE BAR-DIGGINGS

Flashy shops and showy houses of San Francisco. Rich Bar charmingly
fresh and original. A diminutive valley. Rio de las Plumas, or Feather
River. Rich Bar, the Barra Rica of the Spaniards. An acknowledgment of
"a most humiliating consciousness of geological deficiencies". Palatial
splendor of the Empire Hotel. Round tents, square tents, plank hovels,
log cabins, etc. "Local habitations" formed of pine boughs, and
covered with old calico shirts. The "office" of Dr. C. excites the
risibilities of the author. One of the "finders" of Rich Bar. Had not
spoken to a woman for two years. Honors the occasion by an "investment"
in champagne. The author assists in drinking to the honor of her
arrival at the Bar. Nothing done in California without the sanctifying
influence of the "spirit". History of the discovery of gold at Rich
Bar. Thirty-three pounds of gold in eight hours. Fifteen hundred
dollars from a panful of "dirt". Five hundred miners arrive at Rich Bar
in about a week. Smith Bar, Indian Bar, Missouri Bar, and other bars.
Miners extremely fortunate. Absolute wealth in a few weeks. Drunken
gamblers in less than a year. Suffering for necessaries of life. A mild
winter. A stormy spring. Impassable trails. No pack-mule trains arrive.
Miners pack flour on their backs for over forty miles. Flour sells at
over three dollars a pound. Subsistence on feed-barley. A voracious
miner. An abundance placed in storage.

LETTER _the_ FOURTH PAGE 55

ACCIDENTS--SURGERY--DEATH--FESTIVITY

Frightful accidents to which the gold-seeker is constantly liable.
Futile attempts of physician to save crushed leg of young miner.
Universal outcry against amputation. Dr. C, however, uses the knife.
Professional reputation at stake. Success attends the operation. Death
of another young miner, who fell into mining-shaft. His funeral.
Picturesque appearance of the miners thereat. Of what the miner's
costume consists. Horror of the author aroused in contemplation of the
lonely mountain-top graveyard. Jostling of life and death. Celebration
of the anniversary of Chilian independence. Participation of a certain
class of Yankees therein. The procession. A Falstaffian leader. The
feast. A twenty-gallon keg of brandy on the table, gracefully encircled
by quart dippers. The Chilenos reel with a better grace, the Americans
more naturally.

LETTER _the_ FIFTH PAGE 67

DEATH OF A MOTHER--LIFE OF PIONEER WOMEN

Death of one of the four pioneer women of Rich Bar. The funeral from
the log-cabin residence. Sickly ten-months-old baby moans piteously for
its mother. A handsome girl of six years, unconscious of her
bereavement, shocks the author by her actions. A monte-table cover as a
funeral pall. Painful feelings when nails are driven into coffin. The
extempore prayer. Every observance possible surrounded the funeral.
Visit to a canvas house of three "apartments". Barroom, dining-room,
kitchen with bed-closet. A sixty-eight-pound woman. "A magnificent
woman, a wife of the right sort". "Earnt her 'old man' nine hundred
dollars in nine weeks, by washing". The "manglers" and the "mangled".
Fortitude of refined California women pioneers. The orphaned girl a
"cold-blooded little wretch". Remorse of the author. "Baby decanters".
The gayety and fearlessness of the orphaned girl.

LETTER _the_ SIXTH PAGE 77

USE OF PROFANITY--UNCERTAINTY OF MINING

Prevalence of profanity in California. Excuses for its use. A mere slip
of the tongue, etc. Grotesqueness of some blasphemous expressions.
Sleep-killing mining machinery. What a flume is. Project to flume the
river for many miles. The California mining system a gambling or
lottery transaction. Miner who works his own claim the more successful.
Dr. C. a loser in his mining ventures. Another sleep-killer.
Bowling-alleys. Bizarre cant phrases and slang used by the miners.
"Honest Indian?" "Talk enough when horses fight". "Talk enough between
gentlemen". "I've got the dead-wood on him". "I'm going nary cent" (on
person mistrusted). All carry the freshness of originality to the ear
of the author.

LETTER _the_ SEVENTH PAGE 87

THE NEW LOG-CABIN HOME AT INDIAN BAR

Change of residence to Indian Bar. Whether to go to the new camp on
muleback over the hill, or on foot by crossing the river. The
water-passage decided upon. An escort of Indian Barians. Magnificence
of scenery on the way. Gold-miners at work. Their implements. "The
color". The Stars and Stripes on a lofty treetop. A camp of tents and
cabins. Some of calico shirts and pine boughs. Indian Bar described.
Mountains shut out the sun. The "Humbolt" (spelled without the _d_ on
the sign) the only hotel in the camp. A barroom with a dancing-floor. A
cook who plays the violin. A popular place. Clinking glasses and
swaggering drinkers. "No place for a lady". The log-cabin residence.
Its primitive, makeshift furnishings. The library. No churches,
society, etc. "No vegetables but potatoes and onions, no milk, no eggs,
no _nothing_."

LETTER _the_ EIGHTH PAGE 103

LIFE AND CHARACTERS AT INDIAN BAR

Ned, the mulatto cook and the Paganini of the Humboldt Hotel. A naval
character. His ecstasy upon hearing of the coming of the author to the
Bar. Suggestion of a strait-jacket for him. "The only petticoated
astonishment on this Bar". First dinner at the log cabin. Ned's
pretentious setting of the pine dining-table. The Bar ransacked for
viands. The bill of fare. Ned an accomplished violinist. "Chock," his
white accompanist. The author serenaded. An unappreciated "artistic"
gift. A guide of the Fremont expedition camps at Indian Bar. A
linguist, and former chief of the Crow Indians. Cold-blooded recitals
of Indian fights. The Indians near the Bar expected to make a murderous
attack upon the miners. The guide's council with them. Flowery reply of
the Indians. A studious Quaker. His merciless frankness and regard for
truth. "The Squire," and how he was elected justice of the peace. The
miners prefer to rule themselves.

LETTER _the_ NINTH PAGE 117

THEFT OF GOLD-DUST--TRIAL AND PUNISHMENT

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. Fears that they
would hang the prisoner. A regular trial decided upon, at the Empire,
Rich Bar, where the gold-dust was stolen. 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_ TENTH PAGE 133

AMATEUR MINING--HAIRBREADTH 'SCAPES, &C.

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 the 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, the gallina del campo of the Spaniards. Pines and
dies in captivity. Smart, harmless earthquake-shocks.

LETTER _the_ ELEVENTH PAGE 149

ROBBERY, TRIAL, EXECUTION--MORE TRAGEDY

Theft of gold-dust. Arrest of two suspected miners. Trial and acquittal
at miners' meeting. Robbed persons still believe the accused guilty.
Suspects leave mountains. One returns, and plan for his detection
proves 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_ TWELFTH PAGE 163

A STORMY WINTER--HOLIDAY SATURNALIAS

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. Muleback 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 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_ THIRTEENTH PAGE 177

SOCIABILITY AND EXCITEMENTS OF MINING-LIFE

Departure from 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 the working thereof
impossible. Prediction that quartz-mining eventually will be the most
profitable. Miners leave the river without paying their debts. Pursued
and captured. Miners' court orders settlement in full. Celebration, by
French miners on the river, 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_ FOURTEENTH PAGE 191

SPRINGTIDE--LINGUISTICS--STORMS--ACCIDENTS

The splendor of a March morning in the mountains of California. The
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 the minds of
the Americans. An "ugly disposition" manifested when the speaker is not
understood. The 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_ FIFTEENTH PAGE 205

MINING METHODS--MINERS, GAMBLERS, &C.

Difficulty experienced in writing amid the charms of California
mountain scenery. Science the blindest guide on a gold-hunting
expedition. Irreverent contempt of the beautiful mineral to the
dictates of science. Nothing better to be expected from the root of all
evil. Foreigners more successful than Americans in its pursuit.
Americans always longing for big strikes. Success lies in staying and
persevering. How a camp springs into existence. Prospecting, panning
out, and discovery that it pays. The claim. Building the shanty.
Spreading of news of the new diggings. Arrival of the monte-dealers.
Industrious begin digging for gold. The claiming system. How claims
worked. Working difficult amidst huge mountain rocks. Partnerships then
compulsory. Naming the mine or company. The long-tom. Panning out the
gold. Sinking shaft to reach bed-rock. Drifting coyote-holes in search
of crevices. Water-ditches and water companies. Washing out in
long-tom. Waste-ditches. Tailings. Fluming companies. Rockers.
Gold-mining is nature's great lottery scheme. Thousands taken out in a
few hours. Six ounces in six months. "Almost all seem to have lost".
Jumped claims. Caving in of excavations. Abandonment of expensive
paying shafts. Miner making "big strike" almost sure prey of
professional gamblers. As spring opens, gamblers flock in like birds of
prey. After stay of only four days, gambler leaves Bar with over a
thousand dollars of miners' gold. As many foreigners as Americans on
the river. Foreigners generally extremely ignorant and degraded. Some
Spaniards of the highest education and accomplishment. Majority of
Americans mechanics of better class. Sailors and farmers next in
number. A few merchants and steamboat-clerks. A few physicians. One
lawyer. Ranchero of distinguished appearance an accomplished
monte-dealer and horse-jockey. Is said to have been a preacher in the
States. Such not uncommon for California.

LETTER _the_ SIXTEENTH PAGE 223

BIRTH--STABBING--FOREIGNERS OUSTED--REVELS

California mountain flora. A youthful Kanaka mother. Her feat of
pedestrianism. Stabbing of a Spaniard by an American. The result of a
request to pay a debt. Nothing done and but little said about the
atrocity. Foreigners barred from working at Rich Bar. Spaniards
thereupon move to Indian Bar. They erect places for the sale of
intoxicants. Many new houses for public entertainment at Indian Bar.
Sunday "swearing, drinking, gambling, and fighting". Salubrity of the
climate. No death for months, except by accidental drowning in
flood-water. Capture of two grizzly cubs. "The oddest possible pets".
"An echo from the outside world once a month."

LETTER _the_ SEVENTEENTH PAGE 231

SUPPLIES BY PACK-MULES--KANAKAS AND INDIANS

Belated arrival of pack-mule train with much-needed supplies.
Picturesque appearance of the dainty-footed mules descending the steep
hills. Of every possible color. Gay trappings. Tinkling bells. Peculiar
urging cry of the Spanish muleteers. Lavish expenditure of gold-dust
for vegetables and butter. Potatoes forty cents a pound. Incense of the
pungent member of the lily family. Arrival of other storm-bound trains,
and sudden collapse in prices. A horseback-ride on dangerous
mule-trail. Fall of oxen over precipice. The mountain flowers, oaks,
and rivulets. Visit to Kanaka mother. A beauty from the isles. Hawaiian
superstition. An unfortunate request for the baby as a present.
Consolatory promise to give the next one. Indian visitors.
Head-dresses. "Very tight and very short shirts". Indian mode of life.
Their huts, food, cooking, utensils, manner of eating. Sabine-like
invasion leaves to tribe but a few old squaws. "Startlingly
unsophisticated state of almost entire nudity". Their filthy habits.
Papooses fastened in framework of light wood. Indian modes of fishing.
A handsome but shy young buck. Classic gracefulness of folds of
white-sheet robe of Indian. Light and airy step of the Indians
something superhuman. Miserably brutish and degraded. Their vocabulary
of about twenty words. Their love of gambling, and its frightful
consequences. Arrival of hundreds of people at Indian Bar. Saloons
springing up in every direction. Fluming operations rapidly
progressing. A busy, prosperous summer looked for.

LETTER _the_ EIGHTEENTH PAGE 247

FOURTH OF JULY FESTIVAL--SPANISH ATTACKED

Fourth of July celebration at Rich Bar. The author makes the flag. Its
materials. How California was represented therein. Floated from the top
of a lofty pine-tree. The decorations at the Empire Hotel. An
"officious Goth" mars the floral piece designed for the orator of the
day. Only two ladies in the audience. Two others are expected, but do
not arrive. No copy of the Declaration of Independence. Some
preliminary speeches by political aspirants. Orator of the day reads
anonymous poem. Oration "exceedingly fresh and new". Belated arrival of
the expected ladies, new-comers from the East. With new fashions, they
extinguish the author and her companion. Dinner at the Empire. Mexican
War captain as president. "Toasts quite spicy and original". Fight in
the barroom. Eastern lady "chose to go faint" at sight of blood. Cabin
full of "infant phenomena". A rarity in the mountains. Miners, on way
home from celebration, give nine cheers for mother and children. Outcry
at Indian Bar against Spaniards. Several severely wounded. Whisky and
patriotism. Prejudices and arrogant assurance accounted for.
Misinterpretation by the foreigner. Injustices by the lower classes
against Spaniards pass unnoticed. Innumerable drunken fights. Broken
heads and collarbones, stabbings. "Sabbaths almost always enlivened by
such merry events". Body of Frenchman found in river. Murder evident.
Suspicion falls on nobody.

LETTER _the_ NINETEENTH PAGE 259

MURDER, THEFT, RIOT, HANGING, WHIPPING, &C.

Three weeks of excitement at Indian Bar. Murders, fearful accidents,
bloody deaths, whippings, hanging, an attempted suicide, etc.
Sabbath-morning walk in the hills. Miners' ditch rivaling in beauty the
work of nature. Fatal stabbing by a Spaniard. He afterwards parades
street with a Mexicana, brandishing along bloody knife. His pursuit by
and escape from the infuriated Americans. Unfounded rumor of conspiracy
of the Spaniards to murder the Americans. Spaniards barricade
themselves. Grief of Spanish woman over corpse of murdered man. Miners
arrive from Rich Bar. Wild cry for vengeance, and for expulsion of
Spaniards. The author prevailed upon to retire to place of safety.
Accidental discharge of gun when drunken owner of vile resort attempts
to force way through armed guard. Two seriously wounded. Sobering
effect of the accident. Vigilance committee organized. Suspected
Spaniards arrested. Trial of the Mexicana. Always wore male attire, was
foremost in fray, and, armed with brace of pistols, fought like a fury.
Sentenced to leave by daylight. Indirect cause of fight. Woman always
to blame. Trial of ringleaders. Sentences of whipping, and to leave.
Confiscation of property for benefit of wounded. Anguish of the author
when Spaniards were whipped. Young Spaniard movingly but vainly pleads
for death instead of whipping. His oath to murder every American he
should afterwards meet alone. Doubtless will keep his word. Murder of
Mr. Bacon, a ranchero, for his money, by his negro cook. Murderer
caught at Sacramento with part of money. His trial at Rich Bar by the
vigilantes. Sentence of death by hanging. Another negro attempts
suicide. Accuses the mulatto Ned of attempt to murder him. Dr. C. in
trouble for binding up negro's self-inflicted wounds. Formation of
"Moguls," who make night hideous. Vigilantes do not interfere. Duel at
Missouri Bar. Fatal results. A large crowd present. Vigilance committee
also present. "But you must remember that this is California."

LETTER _the_ TWENTIETH PAGE 281

MURDER--MINING SCENES--SPANISH BREAKFAST

Ramada, unoccupied, wrecked by log rolling down hill. Was place of
residence of wounded Spaniard, who had died but a few days previously.
Murder near Indian Bar. Innocent and harmless person arrested, said to
answer description of murderer. A humorous situation. A "guard of
honor" from the vigilantes while in custody. Upon release his expenses
all paid. Enjoyed a holiday from hard work. Tendered a present and a
handsome apology. Public opinion in the mines a cruel but fortunately a
fickle thing. Invitation to author to breakfast at Spanish garden. The
journey thereto, along river, with its busy mining scenes. The
wing-dam, and how it differs from the ordinary dam. An involuntary
bath. Drifts, shafts, coyote-holes. How claims are worked. Flumes.
Unskilled workmen. Their former professions or occupations. The best
water in California, but the author is unappreciative. Flavorless, but,
since the Flood, always tastes of sinners. Don Juan's country-seat. The
Spanish breakfast. The eatables and the drinkables. Stronger spirits
for the stronger spirits. Ice, through oversight, the only thing
lacking. Yank's tame cub. Parodic doggerel by the author on her loss of
pets. A miners' dinner-party with but one teaspoon, and that one
borrowed. An unlearned and wearisome blacksmith.

LETTER _the_ TWENTY-FIRST PAGE 297

DISCOMFORTS OF TRIP TO POLITICAL CONVENTION

Visit to the American Valley. Journey thither. Scenes by the way.
Political convention. Delegates from Indian Bar. Arrival at Greenwood's
Rancho, headquarters of Democrats. Overcrowded. Party proceed to the
American Rancho, headquarters of Whigs. Also overcrowded. Tiresome ride
of ladies on horseback. Proceed to house of friend of lady in party. An
inhospitable reception. The author entertains herself. Men of party
return to the American Rancho. Fearful inroad upon the eatables.
Landlord aghast, but pacified by generous orders for drinkables.
California houses not proof against eavesdroppers. Misunderstandings
and explanations overheard by the author. Illness of hostess.
Uncomfortable and miserable night, and worse quarters. Handsome
riding-habit, etc., of the hostess. Table-service, carpeting, chests of
tea, casks of sugar, bags of coffee, etc., "the good people possessed
everything but a house". "The most beautiful spot I ever saw in
California". Owner building house of huge hewn logs. The author returns
to the American Rancho. Its primitive furniture, etc. Political
visitors. The convention. Horse-racing and gambling. The author goes to
Greenwood's Rancho. More primitive furniture and lack of accommodations.
Misplaced benevolence of Bostonians. Should transfer their activities
to California.

LETTER _the_ TWENTY-SECOND PAGE 317

THE OVERLAND TIDE OF IMMIGRATION

Exoneration of landlords for conditions at Greenwood's Rancho. The
American Valley. Prospective summer resort. Prodigious vegetables. New
England scenery compared with that of California. Greenwood's Rancho.
Place of origin of quartz hoax. Beautiful stones. Recruiting-place of
overland immigrants. Haggard immigrant women. Death and speedy burial
on the plains. Handsome young widow immigrant. Aspirants to matrimony
candidates for her hand. Interesting stories of adventures on the
plains. Four women, sisters or sisters-in-law, and their thirty-six
children. Accomplished men. Infant prodigies. A widow with eight sons
and one daughter. Primitive laundering, but generous patrons. The
bloomer costume appropriate for overland journey. Dances in barroom.
Unwilling female partners. Some illiterate immigrants. Many intelligent
and well-bred women. The journey back to Indian Bar. The tame frog in
the rancho barroom. The dining-table a bed at night. Elation of the
author on arriving at her own log cabin.

LETTER _the_ TWENTY-THIRD PAGE 335

MINING FAILURES--DEPARTURE FROM INDIAN BAR

Dread of spending another winter at Indian Bar. Failure of nearly all
the fluming companies. Official report of one company. Incidental
failure of business people. The author's preparations to depart.
Prediction of early rains. High prices cause of dealers' failure to lay
in supply of provisions. Probable fatal results to families unable to
leave Bar. Rain and snow alternately. The Squire a poor weather
prophet. Pack-mule trains with provisions fail to arrive. Amusement
found in petty litigation. Legal acumen of the Squire. He wins golden
opinions. The judgment all the prevailing party gets. What the
constable got in effort to collect judgment. Why Dr. C.'s fee was not
paid. A prescription of "calumny and other pizen doctor's stuff". A
wonderful gold specimen in the form of a basket. "Weighs about two
dollars and a half". How little it takes to make people comfortable. A
log-cabin meal and its table-service. The author departs on horseback
from Indian Bar. Her regrets upon leaving the mountains. "Feeble,
half-dying invalid not recognizable in your now perfectly healthy
sister."

_The_ Illustrations

1. GOLD-WASHING IN WICKER BASKETS--AMERICANS AND HISPANO-CALIFORNIANS
WITH INDIANS _Frontispiece_

This is a composite engraving, a very interesting feature of which is
the Indians and their wicker baskets, the latter going out of use when
metal pans were obtainable, which also displaced wooden bowls and
homely makeshifts. This feature is resketched from a rare old print in
the possession of the Van Ness family of San Francisco. The huts are
specimens of ramadas, popular with the Spanish-speaking miners, and
frequently mentioned by Shirley.

2. SUTTER'S MILL, COLOMA, WHERE GOLD WAS ACCIDENTALLY DISCOVERED
IN JANUARY, 1848 FACES PAGE 42

This fine engraving follows closely, in all essential details, that in
the Voyages en Californie et dans l'Oregon, par M. de Saint-Amant,
Envoye du Gouvernement Francais, en 1851-1852 (Paris, 1854). The
engravings in that volume, although poorly printed on a cheap grade of
book-paper, are noted for their accuracy, and are interesting as
showing the methods etc. of the miners while Shirley was writing her
Letters. The tail-race, in the foreground, is where James Wilson
Marshall and Peter L. Wimmer first saw the nuggets, but Marshall was
the first to pick up a specimen. Much has been written of Marshall; the
Wimmers were of the Western pioneer type.

3. GROUND-SLUICING FACES PAGE 86

This spirited engraving is resketched, in essentials, from a woodcut in
Henry De Groot's Recollections of California Mining Life (1884), also
in his Gold Mines and Mining in California (1885). Ground-sluicing is
done in winter, when water is abundant and the ground soft, the
pay-dirt being thrown into a channel made for the purpose, and down
which the water rushes. The gold settles on the bed-rock, and is
collected later, when the water-run has subsided.

4. PAN, CRADLE OR ROCKER, LONG-TOM, SLUICE-WASHING--DRIFTING, WINDLASS
AND SHAFT FACES PAGE 132

The varied and animated scene depicted in this plate is resketched from
De Groot's Gold Mines and Mining in California. (See note to plate 3.)
In the foreground, on the left, a miner washes dirt in a pan. Above,
and to the left, a miner washes in a rocker or cradle, the pay-dirt
coming in a tram-car from the tunnel, in which are drift-diggings. The
men at the windlass are sinking a shaft, prospecting for drift-deposits.
To the right, in the foreground, three men are working a long-tom,
which, in point of time, followed the rocker. One of the miners is
keeping the dirt stirred up in the tom, under which is set a riffle-box
with quicksilver to catch the gold. In the background miners are hand
or shovel sluicing, in which the riffle-box of the long-tom is
dispensed with.

5. INTERIOR OF MINERS' LOG CABIN--ONE PARTNER COOKING FOR NIGHT-FARING
VISITORS FACES PAGE 176

This interesting engraving also follows, in all essentials, that in de
Saint-Amant's Voyages. (See note to plate 2, supra.) The owners of the
cabin had evidently retired for the night, and were awakened by their
visitors. The upper bunk, or berth, has been vacated by the miner
cooking. We will say two of the visitors have been prospecting, and are
reasoning with the third, who appears to have come from that state of
the Union "where one must demonstrate." The rifle close to the bunk of
the sleeping miner, the mining implements littered over the floor, the
bottles etc. on the shelf-table, are features that require no
explanation.

6. SALOON IN A MINING-CAMP--MONTE-DEALER, MINERS, ESPANOLA AND
MEXICANA FACES PAGE 258

This is a composite engraving, the artist having combined several old
prints. The Spanish woman is shown in a national costume, and her air
and attitude indicate her ability to take care of herself. The Mexican
girl at the bar, and armed, is a type of the Mexicana mentioned by
Shirley.

7. WASHING IN ROCKERS ON RIVER'S BRINK--MINERS PACKING PAY-GRAVEL
IN BUCKETS FACES PAGE 280

This realistic plate follows closely, in essentials, that in de
Saint-Amant's Voyages. (See note to plate 2, ante.) The bare declivity
has evidently been worked, and the auriferous gravel must now be packed
from the heights. A barrow with shafts at only one end may be seen
beside one of the rockers, and it is conjectured that not all the
gravel is picked in buckets. The miner seen in the background of
brushwood digs the pay-gravel.

8. WASHING IN LONG-TOM WITH WATER FROM FLUME--CHEAPER THAN PUMPING
FROM RIVER FACES PAGE 334

This beautiful engraving follows closely that in de Saint-Amant's
Voyages. (See note to plate 2, ante.) Here the miners found it more
economical to purchase water from a fluming company than to pump it
from the river. The belt and pulley is used to drive a Chinese pump
which keeps dry the pit now being worked.

_The_ Shirley Letters

Letter _the_ First

Part One

_The_ JOURNEY _to_ RICH BAR

RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,

_September_ 13, 1851.

I can easily imagine, dear M., the look of large wonder which gleams
from your astonished eyes when they fall upon the date of this letter.
I can figure to myself your whole surprised attitude as you exclaim,
"What, in the name of all that is restless, has sent 'Dame Shirley' to
Rich Bar? How did such a shivering, frail, home-loving little thistle
ever float safely to that far-away spot, and take root so kindly, as it
evidently has, in that barbarous soil? Where, in this living, breathing
world of ours, lieth that same Rich Bar, which, sooth to say, hath a
most taking name? And, for pity's sake, how does the poor little fool
expect to amuse herself there?"

Patience, sister of mine. Your curiosity is truly laudable, and I trust
that before you read the postscript of this epistle it will be fully
and completely relieved. And, first, I will merely observe, _en
passant_, reserving a full description of its discovery for a future
letter, that said Bar forms a part of a mining settlement situated on
the East Branch of the North Fork of Feather River, "away off up in the
mountains," as our "little Faresoul" would say, at almost the highest
point where, as yet, gold has been discovered, and indeed within fifty
miles of the summit of the Sierra Nevada itself. So much, at present,
for our _local_, while I proceed to tell you of the propitious--or
unpropitious, as the result will prove--winds which blew us hitherward.

You already know that F., after suffering for an entire year with fever
and ague, and bilious, remittent, and intermittent fevers,--this
delightful list varied by an occasional attack of jaundice,--was
advised, as a _dernier ressort_, to go into the mountains. A friend,
who had just returned from the place, suggested Rich Bar as the
terminus of his health-seeking journey, not only on account of the
extreme purity of the atmosphere, but because there were more than a
thousand people there already, and but one physician, and as his
strength increased, he might find in that vicinity a favorable opening
for the practice of his profession, which, as the health of his purse
was almost as feeble as that of his body, was not a bad idea.

F. was just recovering from a brain-fever when he concluded to go to
the mines; but, in spite of his excessive debility, which rendered him
liable to chills at any hour of the day or night, he started on the
seventh day of June--mounted on a mule, and accompanied by a jackass to
carry his baggage, and a friend who kindly volunteered to assist him in
spending his money--for this wildly beautiful spot. F. was compelled by
sickness to stop several days on the road. He suffered intensely, the
trail for many miles being covered to the depth of twelve feet with
snow, although it was almost midsummer when he passed over it. He
arrived at Rich Bar the latter part of June, and found the revivifying
effect of its bracing atmosphere far surpassing his most sanguine
hopes. He soon built himself an office, which was a perfect marvel to
the miners, from its superior elegance. It is the only one on the Bar,
and I intend to visit it in a day or two, when I will give you a
description of its architectural splendors. It will perhaps enlighten
you as to one peculiarity of a newly discovered mining district, when I
inform you that although there were but two or three physicians at Rich
Bar when my husband arrived, in less than three weeks there were
_twenty-nine_ who had chosen this place for the express purpose of
practicing their profession.

Finding his health so almost miraculously improved, F. concluded,
should I approve the plan, to spend the winter in the mountains. I had
teased him to let me accompany him when he left in June, but he had at
that time refused, not daring to subject me to inconveniences, of the
extent of which he was himself ignorant. When the letter disclosing his
plans for the winter reached me at San Francisco, I was perfectly
enchanted. You know that I am a regular nomad in my passion for
wandering. Of course my numerous acquaintances in San Francisco raised
one universal shout of disapprobation. Some said that I ought to be put
into a straitjacket, for I was undoubtedly mad to think of such a
thing. Some said that I should never get there alive, and if I _did_,
would not stay a month; that it was ever my lot to be victimized in,
and commenced my journey in earnest. I was the only passenger. For
thirty miles the road passed through as beautiful a country as I had
ever seen. Dotted here and there with the California oak, it reminded
me of the peaceful apple-orchards and smiling river-meadows of dear old
New England. As a frame to the graceful picture, on one side rose the
Buttes, that group of hills so piquant and saucy, and on the other,
tossing to heaven the everlasting whiteness of their snow-wreathed
foreheads, stood, sublime in their very monotony, the summits of the
glorious Sierra Nevada.

We passed one place where a number of Indian women were gathering
flower-seeds, which, mixed with pounded acorns and grasshoppers, form
the bread of these miserable people. The idea, and the really ingenious
mode of carrying it out, struck me as so singular, that I cannot
forbear attempting a description. These poor creatures were entirely
naked, with the exception of a quantity of grass bound round the waist,
and covering the thighs midway to the knees, perhaps. Each one carried
two brown baskets, which, I have since been told, are made of a species
of osier, woven with a neatness which is absolutely marvelous, when one
considers that they are the handiwork of such degraded wretches. Shaped
like a cone, they are about six feet in circumference at the opening,
and I should judge them to be nearly three feet in depth. It is
evident, by the grace and care with which they handle them, that they
are exceedingly light. It is possible that my description may be
inaccurate, for I have never read any account of them, and merely give
my own impressions as they were received while the wagon rolled rapidly
by the spot at which the women were at work. One of these queer baskets
is suspended from the back, and is kept in place by a thong of leather
passing across the forehead. The other they carry in the right hand and
wave over the flower-seeds, first to the right, and back again to the
left, alternately, as they walk slowly along, with a motion as regular
and monotonous as that of a mower. When they have collected a handful
of the seeds, they pour them into the basket behind, and continue this
work until they have filled the latter with their strange harvest. The
seeds thus gathered are carried to their rancherias, and stowed away
with great care for winter use. It was, to me, very interesting to
watch their regular motion, they seemed so exactly to keep time with
one another; and with their dark shining skins, beautiful limbs, and
lithe forms, they were by no means the least picturesque feature of the
landscape.

Ten miles this side of Bidwell's Bar, the road, hitherto so smooth and
level, became stony and hilly. For more than a mile we drove along the
edge of a precipice, and so near, that it seemed to me, should the
horses deviate a hairbreadth from their usual track, we must be dashed
into eternity. Wonderful to relate, I did not "Oh!" nor "Ah!" nor
shriek _once_, but remained crouched in the back of the wagon, as
silent as death. When we were again in safety, the driver exclaimed, in
the classic patois of New England, "Wall, I guess yer the fust woman
that ever rode over that are hill without hollering." He evidently did
not know that it was the intensity of my _fear_ that kept me so still.

Soon Table Mountain became visible, extended like an immense
dining-board for the giants, its summit a perfectly straight line
penciled for more than a league against the glowing sky. And now we
found ourselves among the Red Hills, which look like an ascending sea
of crimson waves, each crest foaming higher and higher as we creep
among them, until we drop down suddenly into the pretty little valley
called Bidwell's Bar.

I arrived there at three o'clock in the evening, when I found F. in
much better health than when he left Marysville. As there was nothing
to sleep _in_ but a tent, and nothing to sleep _on_ but the ground, and
the air was black with the fleas hopping about in every direction, we
concluded to ride forward to the Berry Creek House, a ranch ten miles
farther on our way, where we proposed to pass the night.

LETTER _the_ FIRST

Part Two

[_The_ PIONEER, _February_, 1854]

_The_ JOURNEY _to_ RICH BAR

SYNOPSIS

A moonlit midsummer-night's ride on muleback. Joyous beginning. The
Indian trail lost. Camping out for the night-Attempts in the morning to
find the trail. A trying ride in the fierce heat of midday. The trail
found. A digression of thirty miles. Lack of food, and seven miles more
to ride. To rest is impossible. Mad joy when within sight of Berry
Creek Rancho. Congratulations on escape from Indians on trail.
Frenchman and wife murdered. The journey resumed. Arrival at the "Wild
Yankee's". Breakfast with fresh butter and cream. Indian bucks, squaws,
and papooses. Their curiosity. Pride of an Indian in ability to repeat
one line of a song. Indian women: extreme beauty of their limbs;
slender ankles and statuesque feet; haggardness of expression and
ugliness of features. Girl of sixteen, a "wildwood Cleopatra," an
exception to the general hideousness. The California Indian not the
Indian of the Leatherstocking tales. A stop at the Buckeye Rancho.
Start for Pleasant Valley Rancho. The trail again lost. Camping out for
the night. Growling bears. Arrive at Pleasant Valley Rancho. A
flea-haunted shanty. The beauty of the wilderness. Quail and deer. The
chaparrals, and their difficulty of penetration by the mules. Escape
from a rattlesnake. Descending precipitous hill on muleback.
Saddle-girth breaks. Harmless fall from the saddle. Triumphant entry
into Rich Bar. A tribute to mulekind. The Empire Hotel. "A huge shingle
palace."

Letter _the_ First

Part Two

_The_ JOURNEY _to_ RICH BAR

RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,

_September_ 13, 1851.

The moon was just rising as we started. The air made one think of
fairy-festivals, of living in the woods _always_, with the green-coated
people for playmates, it was so wonderfully soft and cool, without the
least particle of dampness. A midsummer's night in the leafy month of
June, amid the dreamiest haunts of "Old Crownest," could not be more
enchantingly lovely.

We sped merrily onward until nine o'clock, making the old woods echo
with song and story and laughter, for F. was unusually gay, and I was
in tip-top spirits. It seemed to me so _funny_ that we two people
should be riding on mules, all by ourselves, in these glorious
latitudes, night smiling down so kindly upon us, and, funniest of
_all_, that we were going to live in the Mines! In spite of my gayety,
however, I now began to wonder why we did not arrive at our intended
lodgings. F. reassured me by saying that when we had _de_scended this
hill or _as_cended that, we should certainly be there. But ten o'clock
came; eleven, twelve, one, _two_! but no Berry Creek House! I began to
be frightened, and besides that, was very sick with a nervous headache.
At every step we were getting higher and higher into the mountains, and
even F. was at last compelled to acknowledge that we were _lost!_ We
were on an Indian trail, and the bushes grew so low that at almost
every step I was obliged to bend my forehead to my mule's neck. This
increased the pain in my head to an almost insupportable degree. At
last I told F. that I could not remain in the saddle a moment longer.
Of course there was nothing to do but to camp. Totally unprepared for
such a catastrophe, we had nothing but the blankets of our mules, and a
thin quilt in which I had rolled some articles necessary for the
journey, because it was easier to pack than a traveling-bag. F. told me
to sit on the mule while he prepared my woodland couch, but I was too
nervous for that, and so jumped off and dropped onto the ground, worn
out with fatigue and pain. The night was still dreamily beautiful, and
I should have been enchanted with the adventure (for I had fretted and
complained a good deal, because we had no _excuse_ for camping out) had
it not been for that impertinent headache, which, you remember, always
_would_ visit me at the most inconvenient seasons.

About daylight, somewhat refreshed, we again mounted our mules,
confidently believing that an hour's ride would bring us to the Berry
Creek House, as we supposed, of course, that we had camped in its
immediate vicinity. We tried more than a dozen paths, which, as they
led _nowhere_, we would retrace to the principal trail. At last F.
determined to keep upon one, as it _must_, he thought, in _time_, lead
us out of the mountains, even if we landed on the other side of
California. Well, we rode on, and on, and on, up hill and down hill,
down hill and up, through fir-groves and oak-clumps, and along the edge
of dark ravines, until I thought that I should go _mad_, for all this
time the sun was pouring down its hottest rays most pitilessly, and I
had an excruciating pain in my head and in all my limbs.

About two o'clock we struck the main trail, and, meeting a man,--the
first human being that we had seen since we left Bidwell's,--were told
that we were seven miles from the Berry Creek House, and that we had
been down to the North Fork of the American River, more than thirty
miles out of our way! This joyful news gave us fresh strength, and we
rode on as fast as our worn-out mules could go.

Although we had eaten nothing since noon the day before, I bore up
bravely until we arrived within two miles of the rancho, when courage
and strength both gave way, and I _implored_ F. to let me lie down
under a tree and rest for a few hours. He very wisely refused, knowing
that if I dismounted it would be impossible to get me onto my mule
again, and we should be obliged to spend another night under the stars,
which, in this enchanting climate, would have been delightful, had we
possessed any food; but, knowing that I needed refreshment even more
than I did rest, he was compelled to insist upon my proceeding.

My poor husband! He must have had a trying time with me, for I sobbed
and cried like the veriest child, and repeatedly declared that I should
never live to get to the rancho. F. said afterwards that he began to
think I intended to keep my word, for I certainly _looked_ like a
dying person.

O Mary! it makes me _shudder_ when I think of the mad joy with which I
saw that rancho! Remember that, with the exception of three or four
hours the night before, we had been in the saddle for nearly twenty-four
hours without refreshment. When we stopped, F. carried me into the
house and laid me onto a bunk, though I have no remembrance of it, and
he said that when he offered me some food, I turned from it with
disgust, exclaiming, "Oh, take it away! give me some cold water and let
me _sleep_, and be sure you don't wake me for the next three weeks."
And I _did_ sleep, with a forty slumber-power; and when F. came to me
late in the evening with some tea and toast, I awoke, oh! _so_
refreshed, and perfectly well, for, after all the great fuss which I
had made, there was nothing the matter with me but a little fatigue.

Every one that we met congratulated us upon not having encountered any
Indians, for the paths which we followed were Indian trails, and it is
said they would have killed us for our mules and clothes. A few weeks
ago a Frenchman and his wife were murdered by them. I had thought of
the circumstances when we camped, but was too sick to care what
happened. They generally take women captive, however; and who knows how
narrowly I escaped becoming an Indian chieftainess, and feeding for the
rest of my life upon roasted grasshoppers, acorns, and flower-seeds? By
the way, the last-mentioned article of food strikes me as rather
poetical than otherwise.

After a good night's rest we are perfectly well, and as happy as the
day itself,--which was one of Heaven's own choosing,--and rode to the
"Wild Yankee's," where we breakfasted, and had, among other dainties,
fresh butter and cream.

Soon after we alighted, a _herd_ of Indians, consisting of about a
dozen men and squaws, with an unknown quantity of papooses,--the last
naked as the day they were born,--crowded into the room to stare at us.
It was the most amusing thing in the world to see them finger my
gloves, whip, and hat, in their intense curiosity. One of them had
caught the following line of a song, "O, carry me back to old
Martinez," with which he continued to stun our ears all the time we
remained, repeating it over and over with as much pride and joy as a
mocking-bird exhibits when he has learned a new sound.

On this occasion I was more than ever struck with what I have often
remarked before,--the extreme beauty of the _limbs_ of the Indian
women of California. Though for haggardness of expression and ugliness
of feature they might have been taken for a band of Macbethian witches,
a bronze statue of Cleopatra herself never folded more beautifully
rounded arms above its dusky bosom, or poised upon its pedestal a
slenderer ankle or a more statuesque foot, than those which gleamed
from beneath the dirty blankets of these wretched creatures. There was
one exception, however, to the general hideousness of their faces. A
girl of sixteen, perhaps, with those large, magnificently lustrous, yet
at the same time soft, eyes, so common in novels, so rare in real life,
had shyly glided like a dark, beautiful spirit into the corner of the
room. A fringe of silken jet swept heavily upward from her dusky cheek,
athwart which the richest color came and went like flashes of
lightning. Her flexible lips curved slightly away from teeth like
strips of cocoanut meat, with a mocking grace infinitely bewitching.
She wore a cotton chemise,--disgustingly dirty, I must confess,--girt
about her slender waist with a crimson handkerchief, while over her
night-black hair, carelessly knotted beneath the rounded chin, was a
purple scarf of knotted silk. Her whole appearance was picturesque in
the extreme. She sat upon the ground with her pretty brown fingers
languidly interlaced above her knee, "round as a _period_," (as a
certain American poet has so funnily said of a similar limb in his
Diana,) and smiled up into my face as if we were the dearest friends.

I was perfectly enraptured with this wildwood Cleopatra, and bored F.
almost beyond endurance with exclamations about her starry eyes, her
chiseled limbs, and her beautiful nut-brown cheeks.

I happened to take out of my pocket a paper of pins, when all the women
begged for some of them. This lovely child still remained silent in the
posture of exquisite grace which she had so unconsciously assumed, but,
nevertheless, she looked as pleased as any of them when I gave her,
also, a row of the much-coveted treasures. But I found I had got myself
into business, for all the men wanted pins too, and I distributed the
entire contents of the papers which I happened to have in my pocket,
before they were satisfied, much to the amusement of F., who only
laughs at what he is pleased to call my absurd interest in these poor
creatures; but you know, M., I always _did_ "take" to Indians, though
it must be said that those who bear that name here have little resemblance
to the glorious forest heroes that live in the Leatherstocking tales,
and in spite of my desire to find in them something poetical and
interesting, a stern regard for truth compels me to acknowledge that
the dusky beauty above described is the only even moderately _pretty_
squaw that I have ever seen.

At noon we stopped at the Buckeye Rancho for about an hour, and then
pushed merrily on for the Pleasant Valley Rancho, which we expected to
reach about sundown. Will you, _can_ you, believe that we got lost
again? Should you travel over this road, you would not be at all
surprised at the repetition of this misfortune. Two miles this side of
Pleasant Valley, which is very large, there is a wide, bare plain of
red stones which one is compelled to cross in order to reach it, and I
should not think that even in the daytime any one but an Indian could
keep the trail in this place. It was here that, just at dark, we
probably missed the path, and entered, about the center of the valley,
at the opposite side of an extensive grove from that on which the
rancho is situated. When I first began to suspect that we might
possibly have to camp out another night, I Caudleized at a great rate,
but when it became a fixed fact that such was our fate, I was instantly
as mute and patient as the Widow Prettyman when she succeeded to the
throne of the venerated woman referred to above. Indeed, feeling
perfectly well, and not being much fatigued, I should rather have
enjoyed it, had not F., poor fellow, been so grieved at the idea of my
going supperless to a moss-stuffed couch. It was a long time before I
could coax him to give up searching for the rancho, and, in truth, I
should think that we rode round that part of the valley in which we
found ourselves, for more than two hours, trying to find it.

About eleven o'clock we went back into the woods and camped for the
night. Our bed was quite comfortable, and my saddle made an excellent
pillow. Being so much higher in the mountains, we were a little chilly,
and I was disturbed two or three times by a distant noise, which I have
since been told was the growling of grizzly bears, that abounded in
that vicinity. On the whole, we passed a comfortable night, and rose at
sunrise feeling perfectly refreshed and well. In less than an hour we
were eating breakfast at the Pleasant Valley Rancho, which we easily
discovered by daylight.

Here they informed us that "we had escaped a great marcy," as old Jim
used to say in relating his successful run from a wolf, inasmuch as the
grizzlies had not devoured us during the night! But, seriously, dear
M., my heart thrills with gratitude to the Father for his tender care
of us during that journey, which, view it as lightly as we may, was
certainly attended with _some_ danger.

Notwithstanding we had endured so much fatigue, I felt as well as ever
I did, and after breakfast insisted upon pursuing our journey, although
F. anxiously advised me to defer it until next day. But imagine the
horror, the _creme de la creme_ of borosity, of remaining for twelve
mortal hours of wakefulness in a filthy, uncomfortable, flea-haunted
shanty, without books or papers, when Rich Bar--easily attainable
before night, through the loveliest scenery, shining in the yellow
splendor of an autumnal morn--lay before us! _I_ had no idea of any
such absurd self-immolation. So we again started on our strange,
eventful journey.

I wish I could give you some faint idea of the majestic solitudes
through which we passed,--where the pine-trees rise so grandly in their
awful height, that they seem to look into heaven itself. Hardly a
living thing disturbed this solemnly beautiful wilderness. Now and then
a tiny lizard glanced in and out among the mossy roots of the old
trees, or a golden butterfly flitted languidly from blossom to blossom.
Sometimes a saucy little squirrel would gleam along the somber trunk of
some ancient oak, or a bevy of quail, with their pretty tufted heads
and short, quick tread, would trip athwart our path. Two or three
times, in the radiant distance, we descried a stately deer, which,
framed in by embowering leaves, and motionless as a tableau, gazed at
us for a moment with its large, limpid eyes, and then bounded away with
the speed of light into the evergreen depths of those glorious old
woods.

Sometimes we were compelled to cross broad plains, acres in extent,
called chaparrals, covered with low shrubs, which, leafless and
barkless, stand like vegetable skeletons along the dreary waste. You
cannot imagine what a weird effect these eldrich bushes had upon my
mind. Of a ghastly whiteness, they at first reminded me of a plantation
of antlers, and I amused myself by fancying them a herd of crouching
deer; but they grew so wan and ghastly, that I began to look forward to
the creeping across a chaparral (it is no easy task for the mules to
wind through them) with almost a feeling of dread.

But what a lovely sight greeted our enchanted eyes as we stopped for a
few moments on the summit of the hill leading into Rich Bar! Deep in
the shadowy nooks of the far-down valleys, like wasted jewels dropped
from the radiant sky above, lay half a dozen blue-bosomed lagoons,
glittering and gleaming and sparkling in the sunlight as though each
tiny wavelet were formed of rifted diamonds. It was worth the whole
wearisome journey--danger from Indians, grizzly bears, sleeping under
the stars, and all--to behold this beautiful vision. While I stood
breathless with admiration, a singular sound, and an exclamation of "A
rattlesnake!" from F., startled me into common sense again. I gave one
look at the reptile, horribly beautiful, like a chain of living opals,
as it corkscrewed itself into that peculiar spiral which it is
compelled to assume in order to make an attack, and then, fear
overcoming curiosity, although I had never seen one of them before, I
galloped out of its vicinity as fast as my little mule could carry me.

The hill leading into Rich Bar is five miles long, and as steep as you
can imagine. Fancy yourself riding for this distance along the edge of
a frightful precipice, where, should your mule make a misstep, you
would be dashed hundreds of feet into the awful ravine below. Every one
we met tried to discourage us, and said that it would be impossible for
me to ride down it. They would take F. aside, much to my amusement, and
tell him that he was assuming a great responsibility in allowing me to
undertake such a journey. I, however, insisted upon going on. About
halfway down we came to a level spot, a few feet in extent, covered
with sharp slate-stones. Here the girth of my saddle, which we
afterwards found to be fastened only by four _tacks_, gave way, and I
fell over the right side, striking on my left elbow. Strange to say, I
was not in the least hurt, and again my heart wept tearful thanks to
God, for, had the accident happened at any other part of the hill, I
must have been dashed, a piece of shapeless nothingness, into the dim
valleys beneath.

F. soon mended the saddle-girth. I mounted my darling little mule, and
rode triumphantly into Rich Bar at five o'clock in the evening. The
Rich Barians are astonished at my courage in daring to ride down the
hill. Many of the miners have told me that they dismounted several
times while descending it. I, of course, feel very vain of my exploit,
and glorify myself accordingly, being particularly careful, all the
time, not to inform my admirers that my courage was the result of the
know-nothing, fear-nothing principle; for I was certainly ignorant,
until I had passed them, of the dangers of the passage. Another thing
that prevented my dismounting was the apparently utter impossibility,
on such a steep and narrow path, of mounting again. Then, I had much
more confidence in my mule's power of picking the way and keeping his
footing, than in my own. It is the prettiest sight in the world to see
these cunning creatures stepping so daintily and cautiously among the
rocks. Their pretty little feet, which absolutely do not look larger
than a silver dollar, seem made on purpose for the task. They are often
perfect little vixens with their masters, but an old mountaineer, who
has ridden them for twenty years, told me that he never knew one to be
skittish with a woman. The intelligent darlings seem to know what a
bundle of helplessness they are carrying, and scorn to take advantage
of it.

We are boarding, at present, at the "Empire," a huge shingle palace in
the center of Rich Bar, which I will describe in my next letter.
Pardon, dear M., the excessive egotism of this letter; but you have
often flattered me by saying that my epistles were only interesting
when profusely illuminated by that manuscriptal decoration represented
by a great _I_. A most intense love of the ornament myself makes it
easy for me to believe you, and doubt not that my future communications
will be as profusely stained with it as even you could desire.

LETTER _the_ SECOND

[_The_ PIONEER, _March_, 1854]

RICH BAR--ITS HOTELS _and_ PIONEER FAMILIES

SYNOPSIS

The Empire Hotel, _the_ hotel of Rich Bar. The author safely ensconced
therein. California might be called the "Hotel State," from the
plenitude of its taverns, etc. The Empire the only two-story building
in Rich Bar, and the only one there having glass windows. Built by
gamblers for immoral purposes. The speculation a failure, its occupants
being treated with contempt or pity. Building sold for a few hundred
dollars. The new landlord of the Empire. The landlady, an example of
the terrible wear and tear to the complexion in crossing the plains. A
resolute woman. Left behind her two children and an eight-months-old
baby. Cooking for six people, her two-weeks-old baby kicking and
screaming in champagne-basket cradle. "The sublime martyrdom of
maternity". Left alone immediately after infant's birth. Husband
dangerously ill, and cannot help. A kindly miner. Three other women at
the Bar. The "Indiana girl". "Girl" a misnomer. "A gigantic piece of
humanity". "Dainty" habits and herculean feats. A log-cabin family.
Pretty and interesting children. "The Miners' Home". Its petite
landlady tends bar. "Splendid material for social parties this winter."

Letter _the_ Second

RICH BAR--ITS HOTELS _and_ PIONEER FAMILIES

RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,

_September_ 15, 1851.

I believe that I closed my last letter by informing you that I was
safely ensconced--after all the hair-breadth escapes of my wearisome,
though at the same time delightful, journey--under the magnificent roof
of the "Empire," which, by the way, is _the_ hotel of the place, not
but that nearly ever other shanty on the Bar claims the same
grandiloquent title. Indeed, for that matter, California herself might
be called the Hotel State, so completely is she inundated with taverns,
boarding-houses, etc. The Empire is the only two-story building in
town, and absolutely has a live "upstairs." Here you will find two or
three glass windows, an unknown luxury in all the other dwellings. It
is built of planks of the roughest possible description. The roof, of
course, is covered with canvas, which also forms the entire front of
the house, on which is painted, in immense capitals, the following
imposing letters: "THE EMPIRE!" I will describe, as exactly as
possible, this grand establishment. You first enter a large apartment,
level with the street, part of which is fitted up as a barroom, with
that eternal crimson calico which flushes the whole social life of the
Golden State with its everlasting red, in the center of a fluted mass
of which gleams a really elegant mirror, set off by a background of
decanters, cigar-vases, and jars of brandied fruit; the whole forming a
_tout ensemble_ of dazzling splendor. A table covered with a green
cloth,--upon which lies a pack of monte-cards, a back-gammon-board, and
a sickening pile of "yallow-kivered" literature,--with several
uncomfortable-looking benches, complete the furniture of this most
important portion of such a place as "The Empire." The remainder of the
room does duty as a shop, where velveteen and leather, flannel shirts
and calico ditto,--the latter starched to an appalling state of
stiffness,--lie cheek by jowl with hams, preserved meats, oysters, and
other groceries, in hopeless confusion. From the barroom you ascend by
four steps into the parlor, the floor of which is covered by a straw
carpet. This room contains quite a decent looking-glass, a sofa
fourteen feet long and a foot and a half wide, painfully suggestive of
an aching back,--of course covered with red calico (the sofa, _not_ the
back),--a round table with a green cloth, six cane-bottom chars,
red-calico curtains, a cooking-stove, a rocking-chair, _and_ a woman
and a baby, (of whom more anon,) the latter wearing a scarlet frock, to
match the sofa and curtains. A flight of four steps leads from the
parlor to the upper story, where, on each side of a narrow entry, are
four eight-feet-by-ten bedrooms, the floors of which are covered by
straw matting. Here your eyes are again refreshed with a glittering
vision of red-calico curtains gracefully festooned above wooden windows
picturesquely lattice-like. These tiny chambers are furnished with
little tables covered with oilcloth, and bedsteads so heavy that
nothing short of a giant's strength could move them. Indeed, I am
convinced that they were built, piece by piece, on the spot where they
now stand. The entire building is lined with purple calico, alternating
with a delicate blue, and the effect is really quite pretty. The floors
are so very uneven that you are always ascending a hill or descending
into a valley. The doors consist of a slight frame covered with
dark-blue drilling, and are hung on hinges of leather. As to the
kitchen and dining-room, I leave to your vivid imagination to picture
their primitiveness, merely observing that nothing was ever more
awkward and unworkmanlike than the whole tenement. It is just such a
piece of carpentering as a child two years old, gifted with the
strength of a man, would produce, if it wanted to play at making
grown-up houses. And yet this impertinent apology for a house cost its
original owners more than eight thousand dollars. This will not be
quite so surprising when I inform you that, at the time it was built,
everything had to be packed from Marysville at a cost of forty cents a
pound. Compare this with the price of freight on the railroads at home,
and you will easily make an estimate of the immense outlay of money
necessary to collect the materials for such an undertaking at Rich Bar.
It was built by a company of gamblers as a residence for two of those
unfortunates who make a trade--a thing of barter--of the holiest
passion, when sanctified by _love_, that ever thrills the wayward heart
of poor humanity. To the lasting honor of _miners_ be it written, the
_speculation_ proved a decided failure. Yes! these thousand men, many
of whom had been for years absent from the softening amenities of
female society, and the sweet restraining influences of pure
womanhood,--these husbands of fair young wives kneeling daily at the
altars of their holy homes to pray for their far-off ones,--these sons
of gray-haired mothers, majestic in their sanctified old age,--these
brothers of virginal sisters, white and saintlike as the lilies of
their own gardens,--looked only with contempt or pity on these, oh! so
earnestly to be compassionated creatures. These unhappy members of a
class, to one of which the tenderest words that Jesus ever spake were
uttered, left in a few weeks, absolutely driven away by public opinion.
The disappointed gamblers sold the house to its present proprietor for
a few hundred dollars.

Mr. B., the landlord of the Empire, was a Western farmer who with his
wife crossed the plains about two years ago. Immediately on his arrival
he settled at a mining station, where he remained until last spring,
when he removed to Rich Bar. Mrs. B. is a gentle and amiable looking
woman, about twenty-five years of age. She is an example of the
terrible wear and tear to the complexion in crossing the plains, hers
having become, through exposure at that time, of a dark and permanent
yellow, anything but becoming. I will give you a key to her character,
which will exhibit it better than weeks of description. She took a
nursing babe, eight months old, from her bosom, and left it with two
other children, almost infants, to cross the plains in search of gold!
When I arrived she was cooking supper for some half a dozen people,
while her really pretty boy, who lay kicking furiously in his
champagne-basket cradle, and screaming with a six-months-old-baby
power, had, that day, completed just two weeks of his earthly
pilgrimage. The inconvenience which she suffered during what George
Sand calls "the sublime martyrdom of maternity" would appal the wife of
the humblest pauper of a New England village. Another woman, also from
the West, was with her at the time of her infant's birth, but scarcely
had the "latest-found" given the first characteristic shriek of its
debut upon the stage of life, when this person herself was taken
seriously ill, and was obliged to return to her own cabin, leaving the
poor exhausted mother entirely alone! Her husband lay seriously sick
himself at the time, and of course could offer her no assistance. A
miner, who lived in the house, and hoarded himself, carried her some
bread and tea in the morning and evening, and that was all the care she
had. Two days after its birth, she made a desperate effort, and, by
easy stages of ten minutes at a time, contrived to get poor baby washed
and dressed, after a fashion. He is an astonishingly large and strong
child, holds his head up like a six-monther, and has but one
failing,--a too evident and officious desire to inform everybody, far
and near, at all hours of the night and day, that his lungs are in a
perfectly sound and healthy condition,--a piece of intelligence which,
though very gratifying, is rather inconvenient if one happens to be
particularly sleepy.

Besides Mrs. B., there are three other women on the Bar. One is called
"the Indiana girl," from the name of her pa's hotel, though it must be
confessed that the sweet name of _girl_ seems sadly incongruous when
applied to such a gigantic piece of humanity. I have a great desire to
see her, which will probably not be gratified, as she leaves in a few
days for the valley. But, at any rate, I can say that I have _heard_
her. The far-off roll of her mighty voice, booming through two closed
doors and a long entry, added greatly to the severe attack of nervous
headache under which I was suffering when she called. This gentle
creature wears the thickest kind of miner's boots, and has the dainty
habit of wiping the dishes on her apron! Last spring she _walked_ to
this place, and packed fifty pounds of flour on her back down that
awful hill, the snow being five feet deep at the time.

Mr. and Mrs. B., who have three pretty children, reside in a log cabin
at the entrance of the village. One of the little girls was in the
barroom to-day, and her sweet and birdlike voice brought tearfully, and
yet joyfully, to my memory "Tearsoul," "Leilie," and "Lile Katie."

Mrs. B., who is as small as "the Indiana girl" is large (indeed, I have
been confidently informed that she weighs but sixty-eight pounds),
keeps, with her husband, the "Miners' Home." (Mem.--The lady tends
bar.) _Voila_, my dear, the female population of my new home. Splendid
material for social parties this winter, are they not?

LETTER _the_ THIRD

[_The_ PIONEER, _April_, 1854]

LIFE _and_ FORTUNE _at the_ BAR-DIGGINGS

SYNOPSIS

Flashy shops and showy houses of San Francisco. Rich Bar charmingly
fresh and original. A diminutive valley. Rio de las Plumas, or Feather
River. Rich Bar, the Barra Rica of the Spaniards. An acknowledgment of
"a most humiliating consciousness of geological deficiencies". Palatial
splendor of the Empire Hotel. Round tents, square tents, plank hovels,
log cabins, etc. "Local habitations" formed of pine boughs, and
covered with old calico shirts. The "office" of Dr. C. excites the
risibilities of the author. One of the "finders" of Rich Bar. Had not
spoken to a woman for two years. Honors the occasion by an "investment"
in champagne. The author assists in drinking to the honor of her
arrival at the Bar. Nothing done in California without the sanctifying
influence of the "spirit". History of the discovery of gold at Rich
Bar. Thirty-three pounds of gold in eight hours. Fifteen hundred
dollars from a panful of "dirt". Five hundred miners arrive at Rich Bar
in about a week. Smith Bar, Indian Bar, Missouri Bar, and other bars.
Miners extremely fortunate. Absolute wealth in a few weeks. Drunken
gamblers in less than a year. Suffering for necessaries of life. A mild
winter. A stormy spring. Impassable trails. No pack-mule trains arrive.
Miners pack flour on their backs for over forty miles. Flour at over
three dollars a pound. Subsistence on feed-barley. A voracious miner.
An abundance stored.

Letter _the_ Third

LIFE _and_ FORTUNE _at the_ BAR-DIGGINGS

RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,

_September_ 20, 1851.

I intend, to-day, dear M., to be as disagreeably statistical and as
praiseworthily matter-of-factish as the most dogged utilitarian could
desire. I shall give you a full, true, and particular account of the
discovery, rise, and progress of this place, with a religious adherence
to _dates_ which will rather astonish your unmathematical mind. But let
me first describe the spot as it looked to my wondering and
unaccustomed eyes. Remember, I had never seen a mining district before,
and had just left San Francisco, amid whose flashy-looking shops and
showy houses the most of my time had been spent since my arrival in the
Golden State. Of course, to me, the _coup d'oeil_ of Rich Bar was
charmingly fresh and original. Imagine a tiny valley about eight
hundred yards in length, and perhaps thirty in width, (it was measured
for my especial information,) apparently hemmed in by lofty hills,
almost perpendicular, draperied to their very summits with beautiful
fir-trees, the blue-bosomed Plumas (or Feather River, I suppose I must
call it) undulating along their base,--and you have as good an idea as
I can give you of the _local_ of Barra Rica, as the Spaniards so
prettily term it.

In almost any of the numerous books written upon California, no doubt
you will be able to find a most scientific description of the origin of
these bars. I must acknowledge with shame that my ideas on the subject
are distressingly vague. I could never appreciate the poetry or the
humor of making one's wrists ache by knocking to pieces gloomy-looking
stones, or in dirtying one's fingers by analyzing soils, in a vain
attempt to fathom the osteology or anatomy of our beloved earth, though
my heart is thrillingly alive to the faintest shade of color and the
infinite variety of styles in which she delights to robe her
ever-changeful and ever-beautiful _surface_. In my unscientific mind,
the _formations_ are without form, and void; and you might as well talk
Chinese to me, as to embroider your conversation with the terms
"hornblende," "mica," "limestone," "slate," "granite," and "quartz" in
a hopeless attempt to enlighten me as to their merits. The dutiful
diligence with which I attended course after course of lectures on
geology, by America's greatest illustrator of that subject, arose
rather from my affectionate reverence for our beloved Dr. H., and the
fascinating charm which his glorious mind throws round every subject
which it condescends to illuminate, than to any interest in the dry
science itself. It is therefore with a most humiliating consciousness
of my geological deficiencies that I offer you the only explanation
which I have been able to obtain from those most learned in such
matters here. I gather from their remarks, that these bars are formed
by deposits of earth rolling down from the mountains, crowding the
river aside and occupying a portion of its deserted bed. If my
definition is unsatisfactory, I can but refer you to some of the
aforesaid works upon California.

Through the middle of Rich Bar runs the street, thickly planted with
about forty tenements, among which figure round tents, square tents,
plank hovels, log cabins, etc., the residences varying in elegance and
convenience from the palatial splendor of "The Empire" down to a "local
habitation" formed of pine boughs and covered with old calico shirts.

To-day I visited the "office," the only one on the river. I had heard
so much about it from others, as well as from F., that I really _did_
expect something extra. When I entered this imposing place the shock to
my optic nerves was so great that I sank helplessly upon one of the
benches, which ran, divan-like, the whole length (ten feet!) of the
building, and laughed till I cried. There was, of course, no floor. A
rude nondescript, in one corner, on which was ranged the medical
library, consisting of half a dozen volumes, did duty as a table. The
shelves, which looked like sticks snatched hastily from the woodpile,
and nailed up without the least alteration, contained quite a
respectable array of medicines. The white-canvas window stared
everybody in the face, with the interesting information painted on it,
in perfect grenadiers of capitals, that this was Dr. ----'s office.

At my loud laugh (which, it must be confessed, was noisy enough to give
the whole street assurance of the presence of a woman) F. looked
shocked, and his partner looked prussic acid. To him (the partner, I
mean; he hadn't been out of the mines for years) the "office" was a
thing sacred, and set apart for an almost admiring worship. It was a
beautiful architectural ideal embodied in pine shingles and cotton
cloth. Here he literally "lived, and moved, and had his being," his bed
and his board. With an admiration of the fine arts truly praiseworthy,
he had fondly decorated the walls thereof with sundry pictures from
Godey's, Graham's, and Sartain's magazines, among which, fashion-plates
with imaginary monsters sporting miraculous waists, impossible wrists,
and fabulous feet, largely predominated.

During my call at the office I was introduced to one of the _finders_
of Rich Bar,--a young Georgian,--who afterwards gave me a full
description of all the facts connected with its discovery. This
unfortunate had not spoken to a woman for two years, and, in the
elation of his heart at the joyful event, he rushed out and invested
capital in some excellent champagne, which I, on Willie's principle of
"doing in Turkey as the Turkeys do," assisted the company in drinking,
to the honor of my own arrival. I mention this as an instance that
nothing can be done in California without the sanctifying influence of
the _spirit_, and it generally appears in a much more "questionable
shape" than that of sparkling wine. Mr. H. informed me that on the 20th
of July, 1850, it was rumored at Nelson's Creek--a mining station
situated at the Middle Fork of the Feather River, about eighty miles
from Marysville--that one of those vague "Somebodies," a near relation
of the "They-Says," had discovered mines of a remarkable richness in a
northeasterly direction, and about forty miles from the first-mentioned
place. Anxious and immediate search was made for "Somebody," but, as
our Western brethren say, he "wasn't thar'." But his absence could not
deter the miners when once the golden rumor had been set afloat. A
large company packed up their goods and chattels, generally consisting
of a pair of blankets, a frying-pan, some flour, salt pork, brandy,
pickax and shovel, and started for the new Dorado. They "traveled, and
traveled, and traveled," as we used to say in the fairy-stories, for
nearly a week, in every possible direction, when, one evening, weary
and discouraged, about one hundred of the party found themselves at the
top of that famous hill which figures so largely in my letters, whence
the river can be distinctly seen. Half of the number concluded to
descend the mountain that night, the remainder stopping on the summit
until the next morning. On arriving at Rich Bar, part of the
adventurers camped there, but many went a few miles farther down the
river. The next morning, two men turned over a large stone, beneath
which they found quite a sizable piece of gold. They washed a small
panful of the dirt, and obtained from it two hundred and fifty-six
dollars. Encouraged by this success, they commenced staking off the
legal amount of ground allowed to each person for mining purposes, and,
the remainder of the party having descended the hill, before night the
entire bar was "claimed." In a fortnight from that time, the two men
who found the first bit of gold had each taken out six thousand
dollars. Two others took out thirty-three pounds of gold in eight
hours, which is the best day's work that has been done on this branch
of the river. The largest amount ever taken from one panful of dirt was
fifteen hundred dollars. In a little more than a week after its
discovery, five hundred men had settled upon the Bar for the summer.
Such is the wonderful alacrity with which a mining town is built. Soon
after was discovered, on the same side of the river, about half a mile
apart, and at nearly the same distance from this place, the two bars,
Smith and Indian, both very rich, also another, lying across the river,
just opposite Indian, called Missouri Bar. There are several more, all
within a few miles of here, called Frenchman's, Taylor's, Brown's, The
Junction, Wyandott, and Muggin's; but they are, at present, of little
importance as mining stations.

Those who worked in these mines during the fall of 1850 were extremely
fortunate, but, alas! the monte fiend ruined hundreds. Shall I tell you
the fate of two of the most successful of these gold-hunters? From poor
men, they found themselves, at the end of a few weeks, absolutely rich.
Elated with their good fortune, seized with a mania for monte, in less
than a year these unfortunates, so lately respectable and intelligent,
became a pair of drunken gamblers. One of them, at this present
writing, works for five dollars a day, and boards himself out of that;
the other actually suffers for the necessaries of life,--a too common
result of scenes in the mines.

There were but few that dared to remain in the mountains during the
winter, for fear of being buried in the snow, of which, at that time,
they had a most vague idea. I have been told that in these sheltered
valleys it seldom falls to the depth of more than a foot, and
disappears almost invariably within a day or two. Perhaps there were
three hundred that concluded to stay, of which number two thirds
stopped on Smith's Bar, as the labor of mining there is much easier
than it is here. Contrary to the general expectation, the weather was
delightful until about the middle of March. It then commenced storming,
and continued to snow and rain incessantly for nearly three weeks.
Supposing that the rainy season had passed, hundreds had arrived on the
river during the previous month. The snow, which fell several feet in
depth on the mountains, rendered the trail impassable, and entirely
stopped the pack trains. Provisions soon became scarce, and the
sufferings of these unhappy men were indeed extreme. Some adventurous
spirits, with true Yankee hardihood, forced their way through the snow
to the Frenchman's rancho, and packed flour _on their backs_ for more
than forty miles! The first meal that arrived sold for three dollars a
pound. Many subsisted for days on nothing but barley, which is kept
here to feed the pack-mules on. One unhappy individual, who could not
obtain even a little barley for love or money, and had eaten nothing
for three days, forced his way out to the Spanish Rancho, fourteen
miles distant, and in less than an hour after his arrival had devoured
_twenty-seven_ biscuit and a corresponding: quantity of other eatables,
and, of course, drinkables to match. Don't let this account alarm you.
There is no danger of another famine here. They tell me that there is
hardly a building in the place that has not food enough in it to last
its occupants for the next two years; besides, there are two or three
well-filled groceries in town.

LETTER _the_ FOURTH

[_The_ PIONEER, _May_, 1854]

ACCIDENTS--SURGERY--DEATH--FESTIVITY

SYNOPSIS

Frightful accidents to which the gold-seeker is constantly liable.
Futile attempts of physician to save crushed leg of young miner.
Universal outcry against amputation. Dr. C., however, uses the knife.
Professional reputation at stake. Success attends the operation. Death
of another young miner, who fell into mining-shaft. His funeral.
Picturesque appearance of the miners thereat. Of what the miner's
costume consists. Horror of the author aroused in contemplation of the
lonely mountain-top graveyard. Jostling of life and death. Celebration
of the anniversary of Chilian independence. Participation of a certain
class of Yankees therein. The procession. A Falstaffian leader. The
feast. A twenty-gallon keg of brandy on the table, gracefully encircled
by quart dippers. The Chilenos reel with a better grace, the Americans
more naturally.

Letter _the_ Fourth

ACCIDENTS--SURGERY--DEATH--FESTIVITY

RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,

_September_ 22, 1851.

There has been quite an excitement here for the last week, on account
of a successful amputation having been performed upon the person of a
young man by the name of W. As I happen to know all the circumstances
of the case, I will relate them to you as illustrative of the frightful
accidents to which the gold-seekers are constantly liable, and I can
assure you that similar ones happen very often. W. was one of the first
who settled on this river, and suffered extremely from the scarcity of
provisions during the last winter. By steady industry in his laborious
vocation, he had accumulated about four thousand dollars. He was
thinking seriously of returning to Massachusetts with what he had
already gained, when, in the early part of last May, a stone,
unexpectedly rolling from the top of Smith's Hill, on the side of which
he was mining, crushed his leg in the most shocking manner. Naturally
enough, the poor fellow shrank with horror from the idea of an
amputation here in the mountains. It seemed absolutely worse than
death. His physician, appreciating his feelings on the subject, made
every effort to save his shattered limb, but, truly, the Fates seemed
against him. An attack of typhoid fever reduced him to a state of great
weakness, which was still further increased by erysipelas--a common
complaint in the mountains--in its most virulent form. The latter
disease, settling in the fractured leg, rendered a cure utterly
hopeless. His sufferings have been of the most intense description.
Through all the blossoming spring, and a summer as golden as its own
golden self, of our beautiful California he has languished away
existence in a miserable cabin, his only nurses men, some of them, it
is true, kind and good, others neglectful and careless. A few weeks
since, F. was called in to see him. He decided immediately that nothing
but an amputation would save him. A universal outcry against it was
raised by nearly all the other physicians on the Bar.

They agreed, _en masse_, that he could live but a few weeks unless the
leg--now a mere lump of disease--was taken off. At the same time, they
declared that he would certainly expire under the knife, and that it
was cruel to subject him to any further suffering. You can perhaps
imagine F.'s anxiety. It was a great responsibility for a young
physician to take. Should the patient die during the operation, F.'s
professional reputation would, of course, die with him; but he felt it
his duty to waive all selfish considerations, and give W. that one
chance, feeble as it seemed, for his life. Thank God, the result was
most triumphant. For several days existence hung upon a mere thread. He
was not allowed to speak or move, and was fed from a teaspoon, his only
diet being milk, which we obtained from the Spanish Rancho, sending
twice a week for it. I should have mentioned that F. decidedly refused
to risk an operation in the small and miserable tent in which W. had
languished away nearly half a year, and he was removed to the Empire
the day previous to the amputation. It is almost needless to tell you
that the little fortune, to accumulate which he suffered so much, is
now nearly exhausted. Poor fellow! the philosophy and cheerful
resignation with which he has endured his terrible martyrdom is
beautiful to behold. My heart aches as I look upon his young face and
think of "his gentle dark-eyed mother weeping lonely at the North" for
her far-away and suffering son.

As I sat by the bedside of our poor invalid, yielding myself up to a
world of dreamy visionings suggested by the musical sweep of the pine
branch which I waved above his head, and the rosy sunset flushing the
western casement with its soft glory, he suddenly opened his languid
eyes and whispered, "The Chileno procession is returning. Do you not
hear it?" I did not tell him--

That the weary sound, and the heavy breath,
And the silent motions of passing death,
And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank,
Sent through the pores of the coffin-plank,

had already informed me that a far other band than that of the noisy
South Americans was solemnly marching by. It was the funeral train of a
young man who was instantly killed, the evening before, by falling into
one of those deep pits, sunk for mining purposes, which are scattered
over the Bar in almost every direction. I rose quietly and looked from
the window. About a dozen persons were carrying an unpainted coffin,
without pall or bier (the place of the latter being supplied by ropes),
up the steep hill which rises behind the Empire, on the top of which is
situated the burial-ground of Rich Bar. The bearers were all neatly and
cleanly dressed in their miner's costume, which, consisting of a
flannel shirt (almost always of a dark-blue color), pantaloons with the
boots drawn up over them, and a low-crowned broad-brimmed black felt
hat (though the fashion of the latter is not invariable), is not,
simple as it seems, so unpicturesque as you might perhaps imagine. A
strange horror of that lonely mountain graveyard came over me as I
watched the little company wending wearily up to the solitary spot. The
"sweet habitude of being"--not that I fear _death_, but that I love
_life_ as, for instance, Charles Lamb loved it--makes me particularly
affect a cheerful burial-place. I know that it is dreadfully
unsentimental, but I should like to make my last home in the heart of a
crowded city, or, better still, in one of those social homes of the
dead, which the Turks, with a philosophy so beautiful and so poetical,
make their most cheerful resort. Singularly enough, Christians seem to
delight in rendering death particularly hideous, and graveyards
decidedly disagreeable. I, on the contrary, would "plant the latter
with laurels, and sprinkle it with lilies." I would wreathe "sleep's
pale brother" so thickly with roses that even those rabid moralists who
think that it makes us better to paint him as a dreadful fiend, instead
of a loving friend, could see nothing but their blushing radiance. I
would alter the whole paraphernalia of the coffin, the shroud, and the
bier, particularly the first, which, as Dickens says, "looks like a
high-shouldered ghost with its hands in its breeches-pockets." Why
should we endeavor to make our entrance into a glorious immortality so
unutterably ghastly? Let us glide into the "fair shadowland" through a
"gate of flowers," if we may no longer, as in the majestic olden time,
aspire heavenward on the wings of perfumed flame.

How oddly do life and death jostle each other in this strange world of
ours! How nearly allied are smiles and tears! My eyes were yet moist
from the egotistical _pitie de moi-meme_ in which I had been indulging
at the thought of sleeping forever amid these lonely hills, which in a
few years must return to their primeval solitude, perchance never again
to be awakened by the voice of humanity, when the Chileno procession,
every member of it most intensely drunk, really _did_ appear. I never
saw anything more diverting than the whole affair. Of course, _selon
les regles_, I ought to have been shocked and horrified, to have shed
salt tears, and have uttered melancholy jeremiads over their miserable
degradation; but the world is so full of platitudes, my dear, that I
think you will easily forgive me for not boring you with a temperance
lecture, and will good-naturedly let me have my laugh, and not think me
_very_ wicked, after all.

You must know that to-day is the anniversary of the independence of
Chile. The procession got up in honor of it consisted, perhaps, of
twenty men, nearly a third of whom were of that class of Yankees who
are particularly noisy and particularly conspicuous in all celebrations
where it is each man's most onerous duty to get what is technically
called "tight." The man who headed the procession was a complete comic
poem in his own individual self. He was a person of Falstaffian
proportions and coloring, and if a brandy-barrel ever _does_ "come
alive," and, donning a red shirt and buckskin trousers, betake itself
to pedestrianism, it will look more like my hero than anything else
that I can at present think of. With that affectionateness so peculiar
to people when they arrive at the sentimental stage of intoxication,
although it was with the greatest difficulty that he could sustain his
own corporosity, he was tenderly trying to direct the zigzag footsteps
of his companion, a little withered-up, weird-looking Chileno. Alas for
the wickedness of human nature! The latter, whose drunkenness had taken
a Byronic and misanthropical turn, rejected with the basest ingratitude
these delicate attentions. Do not think that my incarnated brandy-cask
was the only one of the party who did unto others as he would they
should do unto him, for the entire band were officiously tendering to
one another the same good-Samaritan-like assistance. I was not
astonished at the Virginia-fence-like style of their marching when I
heard a description of the feast of which they had partaken a few hours
before. A friend of mine, who stepped into the tent where they were
dining, said that the board--really, _board_--was arranged with a
bottle of claret at each plate, and, after the cloth (metaphorically
speaking, I mean, for table-linen is a mere myth in the mines) was
removed, a twenty-gallon keg of brandy was placed in the center, with
quart dippers gracefully encircling it, that each one might help
himself as he pleased. Can you wonder, after that, that every man vied
with his neighbor in illustrating Hogarth's line of beauty? It was
impossible to tell which nation was the more gloriously drunk; but this
I _will_ say, even at the risk of being thought partial to my own
beloved countrymen, That, though the Chilenos reeled with a better
grace, the Americans did it more _naturally_!

LETTER _the_ FIFTH

[_The_ PIONEER, _June_, 1854]

DEATH _of a_ MOTHER--LIFE _of_ PIONEER WOMEN

SYNOPSIS

Death of one of the four pioneer women of Rich Bar. The funeral from
the log-cabin residence. Sickly ten-months-old baby moans piteously for
its mother. A handsome girl of sick years, unconscious of her
bereavement, shocks the author by her actions. A monte-table cover as a
funeral pall. Painful feelings when nails are driven into coffin. The
extempore prayer. Every observance possible surrounded the funeral.
Visit to a canvas house of three "apartments". Barroom, dining-room,
kitchen with bed-closet. A sixty-eight-pound woman. "A magnificent
woman, a wife of the right sort". "Earnt her 'old man' nine hundred
dollars in nine weeks, by washing". The "manglers" and the "mangled".
Fortitude of refined California women pioneers. The orphaned girl a
"cold-blooded little wretch". Remorse of the author. "Baby decanters".
The gayety and fearlessness of the orphaned girl.

Letter _the_ Fifth

DEATH _of a_ MOTHER--LIFE _of_ PIONEER WOMEN

RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,

_September_ 22, 1851.

It seems indeed awful, dear M., to be compelled to announce to you the
death of one of the four women forming the female population of this
Bar. I have just returned from the funeral of poor Mrs. B., who died of
peritonitis (a common disease in this place), after an illness of four
days only. Our hostess herself heard of her sickness but two days
since. On her return from a visit which she had paid to the invalid,
she told me that although Mrs. B.'s family did not seem alarmed about
her, in her opinion she would survive but a few hours. Last night we
were startled by the frightful news of her decease. I confess that,
without being very egotistical, the death of one, out of a community of
four women, might well alarm the remainder.

Her funeral took place at ten this morning. The family reside in a log
cabin at the head of the Bar, and although it has no window, all the
light admitted entering through an aperture where there _will_ be a
door when it becomes cold enough for such a luxury, yet I am told, and
can easily believe, that it is one of the most _comfortable_ residences
in the place. I observed it particularly, for it was the first log
cabin that I had ever seen. Everything in the room, though of the
humblest description, was exceedingly clean and neat.

On a board, supported by two butter-tubs, was extended the body of the
dead woman, covered with a sheet. By its side stood the coffin, of
unstained pine, lined with white cambric. You, who have alternately
laughed and scolded at my provoking and inconvenient deficiency in the
power of observing, will perhaps wonder at the minuteness of my
descriptions; but I know how deeply you are interested in everything
relating to California, and therefore I take pains to describe things
exactly as I _see_ them, hoping that thus you will obtain an idea of
life in the mines _as it is_.

The bereaved husband held in his arms a sickly babe ten months old,
which was moaning piteously for its mother. The other child, a
handsome, bold-looking little girl six years of age, was running gayly
around the room, perfectly unconscious of her great bereavement. A
sickening horror came over me, to see her, every few moments, run up to
her dead mother and peep laughingly under the handkerchief that covered
her moveless face. Poor little thing! It was evident that her
baby-toilet had been made by men. She had on a new calico dress, which,
having no tucks in it, trailed to the floor, and gave her a most
singular and dwarf-womanly appearance.

About twenty men, with the three women of the place, had assembled at
the funeral. An extempore prayer was made, filled with all the
peculiarities usual to that style of petition. Ah, how different from
the soothing verses of the glorious burial service of the church!

As the procession started for the hillside graveyard, a dark cloth
cover, borrowed from a neighboring monte-table, was flung over the
coffin. Do not think that I mention any of these circumstances in a
spirit of mockery. Far from it. Every observance usual on such
occasions, that was _procurable_, surrounded this funeral. All the gold
on Rich Bar could do no more; and should I die to-morrow, I should be
marshaled to my mountain-grave beneath the same monte-table-cover pall
which shrouded the coffin of poor Mrs. B.

I almost forgot to tell you how painfully the feelings of the assembly
were shocked by the sound of the nails (there being no screws at any of
the shops) driven with a hammer into the coffin while closing it. It
seemed as if it _must_ disturb the pale sleeper within.

To-day I called at the residence of Mrs. R. It is a canvas house
containing a suite of three "apartments," as Dick Swiveller would say,
which, considering that they were all on the ground-floor, are kept
surprisingly neat. There is a barroom blushing all over with red
calico, a dining-room, kitchen, and a small bed-closet. The little
sixty-eight-pounder woman is queen of the establishment. By the way, a
man who walked home with us was enthusiastic in her praise.
"Magnificent woman, that, sir," he said, addressing my husband; "a wife
of the right sort, _she_ is. Why," he added, absolutely rising into
eloquence as he spoke, "she earnt her _old man_" (said individual
twenty-one years of age, perhaps) "nine hundred dollars in nine weeks,
clear of all expenses, by washing! Such women ain't common, I tell
_you_. If they were, a man might marry, and make money by the
operation." I looked at this person with somewhat the same kind of
_inverted_ admiration wherewith Leigh Hunt was wont to gaze upon that
friend of his "who used to elevate the commonplace to a pitch of the
sublime," and he looked at _me_ as if to say, that, though by no means
gloriously arrayed, I was a mere cumberer of the ground, inasmuch as I
toiled not, neither did I wash. Alas! I hung my diminished head,
particularly when I remembered the eight dollars a dozen which I had
been in the habit of paying for the washing of linen-cambric
pocket-handkerchiefs while in San Francisco. But a lucky thought came
into my mind. As all men cannot be Napoleon Bonapartes, so all women
cannot be _manglers_. The majority of the sex must be satisfied with
simply being _mangled_. Reassured by this idea, I determined to meekly
and humbly pay the amount per dozen required to enable this really
worthy and agreeable little woman "to lay up her hundred dollars a
week, clear of expenses." But is it not wonderful what femininity is
capable of? To look at the tiny hands of Mrs. R., you would not think
it possible that they could wring out anything larger than a doll's
nightcap; but, as is often said, nothing is strange in California. I
have known of sacrifices requiring, it would seem, superhuman efforts,
made by women in this country, who, at home, were nurtured in the
extreme of elegance and delicacy.

Mr. B. called on us to-day with little Mary. I tried to make her, at
least, look sad as I talked about her mother; but although she had seen
the grave closed over her coffin (for a friend of her father's had
carried her in his arms to the burial), she seemed laughingly
indifferent to her loss. Being myself an orphan, my heart contracted
painfully at her careless gayety when speaking of her dead parent, and
I said to our hostess, "What a cold-blooded little wretch it is!" But
immediately my conscience struck me with remorse. Poor orphaned one!
Poor bereaved darling! Why should I so cruelly wish to darken her young
life with that knowledge which a few years' experience will so
painfully teach her? "All _my_ mother came into my eyes" as I bent down
and kissed the white lids which shrouded her beautiful dark orbs, and,
taking her fat little hand in mine, I led her to my room, where, in the
penitence of my heart, I gave her everything that she desired. The
little chatterer was enchanted, not having had any new playthings for a
long while. It was beautiful to hear her pretty exclamations of ecstasy
at the sight of some tiny scent-bottles, about an inch in length, which
she called baby decanters.

Mr. B. intends, in a day or two, to take his children to their
grandmother, who resides somewhere near Marysville, I believe. This is
an awful place for children, and nervous mothers would "die daily" if
they could see little Mary running fearlessly to the very edge of, and
looking down into, these holes (many of them sixty feet in depth),
which have been excavated in the hope of finding gold, and of course
left open.

LETTER _the_ SIXTH

[_The_ PIONEER, _July_, 1854]

USE _of_ PROFANITY--UNCERTAINTY _of_ MINING

SYNOPSIS

Prevalence of profanity in California. Excuses for its use. A mere slip
of the tongue, etc. Grotesqueness of some blasphemous expressions.
Sleep-killing mining machinery. What a flume is. Project to flume the
river for many miles. The California mining system a gambling or
lottery transaction. Miner who works his own claim the more successful.
Dr. C. a loser in his mining ventures. Another sleep-killer.
Bowling-alleys. Bizarre cant phrases and slang used by the miners
"Honest Indian?" "Talk enough when horses fight". "Talk enough between
gentlemen". "I've got the dead-wood on him". "I'm going nary cent" (on
person mistrusted). All carry the freshness of originality to the
author's ear.

Letter _the_ Sixth

USE _of_ PROFANITY--UNCERTAINTY _of_ MINING

RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,

_September_ 30, 1851.

I think that I have never spoken to you of the mournful extent to which
profanity prevails in California. You know that at home it is
considered _vulgar_ for a gentleman to swear; but I am told that here
it is absolutely the fashion, and that people who never uttered an oath
in their lives while in the "States," now clothe themselves with curses
as with a garment. Some try to excuse themselves by saying that it is a
careless habit, into which they have glided imperceptibly from having
been compelled to associate so long with the vulgar and the profane;
that it is a mere slip of the tongue, which means absolutely nothing;
etc. I am willing to believe this, and to think as charitably as
possible of many persons here, who have unconsciously adopted a custom
which I know they abhor. Whether there is more profanity in the mines
than elsewhere, I know not; but, during the short time that I have been
at Rich Bar, I have _heard_ more of it than in all my life before. Of
course the most vulgar blackguard will abstain from swearing in the
_presence_ of a lady, but in this rag-and-cardboard house one is
_compelled_ to hear the most sacred of names constantly profaned by the
drinkers and gamblers, who haunt the barroom at all hours. And this is
a custom which the gentlemanly and quiet proprietor, much as he
evidently dislikes it, cannot possibly prevent. Some of these
expressions, were they not so fearfully blasphemous, would be
grotesquely sublime. For instance, not five minutes ago I heard two men
quarreling in the street, and one said to the other, "Only let me get
hold of your beggarly carcass once, and I will use you up so small that
God Almighty himself cannot see your _ghost!_"

To live thus, in constant danger of being hushed to one's rosy rest by
a ghastly lullaby of oaths, is revolting in the extreme. For that
reason, and because it is infinitely more comfortable during the winter
season than a plank house, F. has concluded to build a log cabin,
where, at least, I shall not be _obliged_ to hear the solemn names of
the Father and the dear Master so mockingly profaned.

But it is not the swearing alone which disturbs my slumber. There is a
dreadful flume, the machinery of which keeps up the most dismal moaning
and shrieking all the livelong night, painfully suggestive of a
suffering child. But, O dear! you don't know what that is, do you? Now,
if I were scientific, I should give you such a vivid description of it
that you would see a pen-and-ink flume staring at you from this very
letter. But, alas! my own ideas on the subject are in a state of
melancholy vagueness. I will do the best possible, however, in the way
of explanation. A flume, then, is an immense trough which takes up a
portion of the river, and with the aid of a dam compels it to run in
another channel, leaving the vacated bed of the stream ready for mining
purposes.

There is a gigantic project now on the tapis, of fluming the entire
river for many miles, commencing a little above Rich Bar. Sometimes
these fluming companies are eminently successful; at others, their
operations are a dead failure.

But, in truth, the whole mining system in California is one great
gambling or, better perhaps, lottery transaction. It is impossible to
tell whether a claim will prove valuable or not. F. has invariably sunk
money in every one that he has bought. Of course a man who works a
claim himself is more likely, even should it turn out poor, to get his
money back, as they say, than one who, like F., hires it done.

A few weeks since, F. paid a thousand dollars for a claim which has
proved utterly worthless. He might better have thrown his money into
the river than to have bought it, and yet some of the most experienced
miners on the Bar thought that it would pay.

But I began to tell you about the different noises which disturb my
peace of mind by day and my repose of body by night, and have gone,
instead, into a financial disquisition upon mining prospects. Pray
forgive me, even though I confess that I intend, some day, when I feel
statistically inclined, to bore you with some profound remarks upon the
claiming, drifting, sluicing, ditching, fluming, and coyoting politics
of the "diggins."

But to return to my sleep-murderers. The rolling on the bowling-alley
never leaves off for ten consecutive minutes at any time during the
entire twenty-four hours. It is a favorite amusement at the mines, and
the only difference that Sunday makes is, that then it never leaves off
for _one_ minute.

Besides the flume and the bowling-alley, there is an inconsiderate dog
which _will_ bark from starry eve till dewy morn. I fancy that he has a
wager on the subject, as all the other _puppies_ seem bitten by the
betting mania.

Apropos of dogs, I found dear old Dake, the noble Newfoundland which H.
gave us, look as intensely black and as grandly aristocratical as ever.
He is the only high-bred dog on the river. There is another animal, by
the plebeian name of John (what a name for a _dog!_), really a handsome
creature, which looks as if he might have a faint sprinkling of good
blood in his veins. Indeed, I have thought it possible that his
great-grandfather was a bulldog. But he always barks at _me_, which I
consider as proof positive that he is nothing but a low-born mongrel.
To be sure, his master says, to excuse him, that he never saw a woman
before; but a dog of any chivalry would have recognized the gentler
sex, even if it _was_ the first time that he had been blessed with the
sight.

In the first part of my letter I alluded to the swearing propensities
of the Rich Barians. Those, of course, would shock you; but, though you
hate slang, I know that you could not help smiling at some of their
bizarre cant phrases.

For instance, if you tell a Rich Barian anything which he doubts,
instead of simply asking you if it is true, he will _invariably_ cock
his head interrogatively, and almost pathetically address you with the
solemn adjuration, "Honest Indian?" Whether this phrase is a slur or a
compliment to the aborigines of this country, I do not know.

Again, they will agree to a proposal with the appropriate words, "Talk
enough when horses fight!" which sentence they will sometimes slightly
vary to "Talk enough between gentlemen."

If they wish to borrow anything of you, they will mildly inquire if you
have it "about your clothes." As an illustration: a man asked F., the
other day, if he had a spare pickax about his clothes. And F. himself
gravely inquired of me this evening, at the dinner-table, if I had a
_pickle_ about my clothes.

If they ask a man an embarrassing question, or in any way have placed
him in an equivocal position, they will triumphantly declare that they
have "got the dead-wood on him." And they are everlastingly "going nary
cent" on those of whose credit they are doubtful. There are many
others, which may be common enough everywhere, but as I never happened
to hear them before, they have for me all the freshness of originality.
You know that it has always been one of my pet rages to trace cant
phrases to their origin; but most of those in vogue here would, I
verily believe, puzzle Horne Tooke himself.

LETTER _the_ SEVENTH

[_The_ PIONEER, _August_, 1854]

_The_ NEW LOG-CABIN HOME _at_ INDIAN BAR

SYNOPSIS

Change of residence to Indian Bar. Whether to go to the new camp on
muleback over the hill, or on foot by crossing the river. The
water-passage decided upon. An escort of Indian Barians. Magnificence
of scenery on the way. Gold-miners at work. Their implements. "The
color". The Stars and Stripes on a lofty treetop. A camp of tents and
cabins. Some of calico shirts and pine boughs. Indian Bar described.
Mountains shut out the sun. The "Humbolt" (spelled without the _d_ on
the sign) the only hotel in the camp. A barroom with a dancing-floor. A
cook who plays the violin. A popular place. Clinking glasses and
swaggering drinkers. "No place for a lady". The log-cabin residence.
Its primitive and makeshift furnishings-The library. No churches,
society, etc. "No vegetables but potatoes and onions, no milk, no eggs,
no _nothing_."

Letter _the_ Seventh

_The_ NEW LOG-CABIN HOME _at_ INDIAN BAR

_From our Log Cabin_, INDIAN BAR,

_October_ 7, 1851.

You will perchance be surprised, dear M., to receive a letter from me
dated Indian instead of Rich Bar, but, as many of F.'s most intimate
friends reside at this settlement, he concluded to build his log cabin
here.

Solemn council was held upon the ways and means of getting "Dame
Shirley" to her new home. The general opinion was, that she had better
mount her fat mule and ride over the hill, as all agreed that it was
very doubtful whether she would be able to cross the logs and jump the
rocks which would bar her way by the water-passage. But that obstinate
little personage, who has always been haunted with a passionate desire
to do everything which people said she could _not_ do, made up her
willful mind immediately to go by the river. Behold, then, the "Dame"
on her winding way, escorted by a deputation of Indian Barians, which
had come up for that important purpose.

It is impossible, my sister, for any power of language, over which _I_
have command, to convey to you an idea of the wild grandeur and the
awful magnificence of the scenery in this vicinity. This fork of the
Feather River comes down very much as the water does at Lodore, now
gliding along with a liquid measure like a river in a dream, and anon
bursting into a thousand glittering foam-beads over the huge rocks,
which rise dark, solemn, and weird-like in its midst. The crossings are
formed of logs, often moss-grown. Only think how charmingly picturesque
to eyes wearied with the costly masonry or carpentry of the bridges at
home! At every step gold-diggers, or their operations, greet your
vision, sometimes in the form of a dam, sometimes in that of a river
turned slightly from its channel to aid the indefatigable gold-hunters
in their mining projects. Now, on the side of a hill, you will see a
long-tom, a huge machine invented to facilitate the separation of the
ore from its native element; or a man busily engaged in working a
rocker, a much smaller and simpler machine used for the same object;
or, more primitive still, some solitary prospector with a pan of dirt
in his hands, which he is carefully washing at the water's edge to see
if he can "get the color," as it is technically phrased, which means,
literally, the smallest particle of gold.

As we approached Indian Bar the path led several times fearfully near
deep holes, from which the laborers were gathering their yellow
harvest, and Dame Shirley's small head swam dizzily as she crept
shudderingly by.

The first thing which attracted my attention as my new home came in
view, was the blended blue, red, and white of the American banner
undulating like a many-colored snake amid the lofty verdure of the
cedars which garland the brown brow of the hill behind our cabin. This
flag was suspended on the Fourth of July last by a patriotic sailor,
who climbed to the top of the tree to which he attached it, cutting
away the branches as he descended, until it stood among its stately
brethren a beautiful moss-wreathed liberty-pole, flinging to the face
of heaven the glad colors of the Free.

When I attempt, dear M., to describe one of these spots to you, I
regret more than ever the ill health of my childhood, which prevented
my attaining any degree of excellence in sketching from nature. Had it
not been for that interruption to my artistic education, I might, with
a few touches of the pencil or the brush, give you the place and its
surroundings. But, alas! my feeble pen will convey to you a very faint
idea of its savage beauty.

This Bar is so small that it seems impossible that the tents and cabins
scattered over it can amount to a dozen. There are, however, twenty in
all, including those formed of calico shirts and pine boughs. With the
exception of the paths leading to the different tenements, the entire
level is covered with mining-holes, on the edges of which lie the
immense piles of dirt and stones which have been removed from the
excavations. There is a deep pit in front of our cabin, and another at
the side of it, though they are not worked, as, when "prospected," they
did not "yield the color."

Not a spot of verdure is to be seen on this place, but the glorious
hills rising on every side, vested in foliage of living green, make
ample amends for the sterility of the tiny level upon which we camp.
The surrounding scenery is infinitely more charming than that of Rich
Bar. The river, in hue of a vivid emerald, as if it reflected the hue
of the fir-trees above, bordered with a band of dark red, caused by the
streams flowing into it from the different sluices, ditches, long-toms,
etc., which meander from the hill just back of the Bar, wanders
musically along. Across the river, and in front of us, rises nearly
perpendicularly a group of mountains, the summits of which are broken
into many beautifully cut conical and pyramidal peaks. At the foot and
left of these eminences, and a little below our Bar, lies Missouri Bar,
which is reached from this spot by a log bridge. Around the latter the
river curves in the shape of a crescent, and, singularly enough, the
mountain rising behind this bend in the stream outlines itself against
the lustrous heaven in a shape as exact and perfect as the moon herself
in her first quarter. Within one horn of this crescent the water is a
mass of foam-sparkles, and it plays upon the rocks which line its bed
an everlasting dirge suggestive of the "grand forever" of the ocean.

At present the sun does not condescend to shine upon Indian Bar at all,
and the old settlers tell me that he will not smile upon us for the
next three months, but he nestles lovingly in patches of golden glory
all along the brows of the different hills around us, and now and then
stoops to kiss the topmost wave on the opposite shore of the Rio de las
Plumas.

The first artificial elegance which attracts your vision is a large rag
shanty, roofed, however, with a rude kind of shingles, over the
entrance of which is painted, in red capitals, ("to what base uses do
we come at last,") the name of the great Humboldt spelt without the
_d_. This is the only hotel in this vicinity, and as there is a really
excellent bowling-alley attached to it, and the barroom has a floor
upon which the miners can dance, and, above all, a cook who can play
the violin, it is very popular. But the clinking of glasses, and the
swaggering air of some of the drinkers, remind us that it is no place
for a lady, so we will pass through the dining-room, and, emerging at
the kitchen, in a step or two reach our log cabin. Enter, my dear; you
are perfectly welcome. Besides, we could not keep you out if we would,
as there is not even a latch on the canvas door, though we really
intend, in a day or two, to have a hook put onto it.

The room into which we have just entered is about twenty feet square.
It is lined over the top with white cotton cloth, the breadths of
which, being sewed together only in spots, stretch gracefully apart in
many places, giving one a bird's-eye view of the shingles above. The
sides are hung with a gaudy chintz, which I consider a perfect marvel
of calico-printing. The artist seems to have exhausted himself on
_roses_. From the largest cabbage down to the tiniest Burgundy, he has
arranged them in every possible variety of wreath, garland, bouquet,
and single flower. They are of all stages of growth, from earliest
budhood up to the ravishing beauty of the "last rose of summer." Nor
has he confined himself to the colors usually worn by this lovely
plant, but, with the daring of a great genius soaring above nature,
worshiping the ideal rather than the real, he has painted them brown,
purple, green, black, and blue. It would need a floral catalogue to
give you the names of _all_ the varieties which bloom upon the calico,
but, judging by the shapes, which really are much like the originals, I
can swear to moss-roses, Burgundies, York and Lancaster, tea-roses, and
multifloras.

A curtain of the above-described chintz (I shall hem it at the first
opportunity) divides off a portion of the room, behind which stands a
bedstead that in ponderosity leaves the Empire couches far behind. But
before I attempt the furniture let me finish describing the cabin
itself.

The fireplace is built of stones and mud, the chimney finished off with
alternate layers of rough sticks and this same rude mortar. Contrary to
the usual custom, it is built inside, as it was thought that
arrangement would make the room more comfortable, and you may imagine
the queer appearance of this unfinished pile of stones, mud, and
sticks. The mantelpiece (remember that on this portion of a great
building some artists, by their exquisite workmanship, have become
world-renowned) is formed of a beam of wood covered with strips of tin
procured from cans, upon which still remain, in black hieroglyphics,
the names of the different eatables which they formerly contained. Two
smooth stones (how delightfully primitive!) do duty as fire-dogs. I
suppose that it would be no more than civil to call a hole two feet
square, in one side of the room, a window, although it is as yet
guiltless of glass. F. tried to coax the proprietor of the Empire to
let him have a window from that pine-and-canvas palace, but he, of
course, declined, as to part with it would really inconvenience
himself. So F. has sent to Marysville for some glass, though it is the
general opinion that the snow will render the trail impassible for
mules before we can get it. In this case we shall tack up a piece of
cotton cloth, and should it chance at any time to be very cold, hang a
blanket before the opening. At present the weather is so mild that it
is pleasanter as it is, though we have a fire in the mornings and
evenings, more, however, for luxury than because we really need it. For
my part, I almost hope that we shall not be able to get any glass, for
you will perhaps remember that it was a pet habit of mine, in my own
room, to sit by a great fire, in the depth of winter, with my window
open.

One of our friends had nailed up an immense quantity of unhemmed cotton
cloth--very coarse--in front of this opening, and as he evidently
prided himself upon the elegant style in which he had arranged the
drapery, it went to my heart to take it down and suspend in its place
some pretty blue linen curtains which I had brought from the valley. My
toilet-table is formed of a trunk elevated upon two claret-cases, and
by draping it with some more of the blue linen neatly fringed, it
really will look quite handsome, and when I have placed upon it my
rosewood workbox, a large cushion of crimson brocade, some Chinese
ornaments of exquisitely carved ivory, and two or three Bohemian-glass
cologne-stands, it would not disgrace a lady's chamber at home.

The looking-glass is one of those which come in paper cases for dolls'
houses. How different from the full-length psyches so almost
indispensable to a dressing-room in the States!

The wash-stand is another trunk, covered with a towel, upon which you
will see, for bowl, a large vegetable-dish, for ewer, a common-sized
dining-pitcher. Near this, upon a small cask, is placed a pail, which
is daily filled with water from the river. I brought with me from
Marysville a handsome carpet, a hair mattress, pillows, a profusion of
bed-linen, quilts, blankets, towels, etc., so that, in spite of the
oddity of most of my furniture, I am, in reality, as thoroughly
comfortable here as I could be in the most elegant palace.

We have four chairs, which were brought from the Empire. I seriously
proposed having three-legged stools. With my usual desire for symmetry,
I thought that they would be more in keeping; but as I was told that it
would be a great deal of trouble to get them made, I was fain to put up
with mere chairs. So you see that even in the land of gold itself one
cannot have everything that she desires. An ingenious individual in the
neighborhood, blessed with a large bump for mechanics, and good nature,
made me a sort of wide bench, which, covered with a neat plaid, looks
quite sofa-like. A little pine table, with oilcloth tacked over the top
of it, stands in one corner of the room, upon which are arranged the
chess and cribbage boards. There is a larger one for dining purposes,
and as unpainted pine has always a most dreary look, F. went everywhere
in search of oilcloth for it, but there was none at any of the bars. At
last, "Ned," the Humboldt Paganini, remembered two old monte-table
covers which had been thrown aside as useless. I received them
thankfully, and, with my planning and Ned's mechanical genius, we
patched up quite a respectable covering. To be sure, the ragged
condition of the primitive material compelled us to have at one end an
extra border, but that only agreeably relieved the monotony. I must
mention that the floor is so uneven that no article of furniture gifted
with four legs pretends to stand upon but three at once, so that the
chairs, tables, etc., remind you constantly of a dog with a sore foot.

At each end of the mantelpiece is arranged a candlestick, not, much to
my regret, a block of wood with a hole in the center of it, but a real
britanniaware candlestick. The space between is gayly ornamented with
F.'s meerschaum, several styles of clay pipes, cigars, cigarritos, and
every procurable variety of tobacco, for, you know, the aforesaid
individual is a perfect devotee of the Indian weed. If I should give
you a month of Sundays, you would never guess what we use in lieu of a
bookcase, so I will put you out of your misery by informing you
instantly that it is nothing more nor less than a candle-box which
contains the library, consisting of a Bible and prayer-book,
Shakespeare, Spenser, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Lowell's Fable for
Critics, Walton's Complete Angler, and some Spanish books,--spiritual
instead of material lights, you see.

There, my dainty Lady Molly, I have given you, I fear, a wearisomely
minute description of my new home. How would you like to winter in such
an abode? in a place where there are no newspapers, no churches,
lectures, concerts, or theaters; no fresh books; no shopping, calling,
nor gossiping little tea-drinkings; no parties, no balls, no picnics,
no tableaus, no charades, no latest fashions, no daily mail (we have an
express once a month), no promenades, no rides or drives; no vegetables
but potatoes and onions, no milk, no eggs, no _nothing_? Now, I expect
to be very happy here. This strange, odd life fascinates me. As for
churches, "the groves were God's first temples," "and for the strength
of the hills, the Swiss mountains bless him"; and as to books, I read
Shakespeare, David, Spenser, Paul, Coleridge, Burns, and Shelley, which
are never old. In good sooth, I fancy that nature intended me for an
Arab or some other nomadic barbarian, and by mistake my soul got packed
up in a Christianized set of bones and muscles. How I shall ever be
able to content myself to live in a decent, proper, well-behaved house,
where toilet-tables are toilet-tables, and not an ingenious combination
of trunk and claret-cases, where lanterns are not broken bottles,
bookcases not candle-boxes, and trunks not wash-stands, but every
article of furniture, instead of being a makeshift, is its own useful
and elegantly finished self, I am sure I do not know. However, when too
much appalled at the humdrummish prospect, I console myself with the
beautiful promises, that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,"
and "as thy days, so shall thy strength be," and trust that when it is
again my lot to live amid the refinements and luxuries of civilization,
I shall endure them with becoming philosophy and fortitude.

LETTER _the_ EIGHTH

[_The_ PIONEER, _September_, 1854]

LIFE _and_ CHARACTERS _at_ INDIAN BAR

SYNOPSIS

Ned, the mulatto cook and the Paganini of the Humboldt Hotel. A naval
character. His ecstasy upon hearing of the coming of the author to the
Bar. Suggestion of a strait-jacket for him. "The only petticoated
astonishment on this Bar". First dinner at the log cabin. Ned's
pretentious setting of the pine dining-table. The Bar ransacked for
viands. The bill of fare. Ned an accomplished violinist. "Chock," his
white accompanist. The author serenaded. An unappreciated "artistic"
gift. A guide of the Fremont expedition camps at Indian Bar. A
linguist, and former chief of the Crow Indians. Cold-blooded recitals
of Indian fights. Indians near the Bar expected to make a murderous
attack upon the miners. The guide's council with them. Flowery reply of
the Indians. A studious Quaker. His merciless frankness and regard for
truth. "The Squire," and how he was elected justice of the peace. Miners
prefer to rule themselves.

Letter _the_ Eighth

LIFE _and_ CHARACTERS _at_ INDIAN BAR

_From our Log Cabin_, INDIAN BAR,

_October_ 20, 1851.

Having seen me, dear M., safely enthroned in my beautiful log palace
with its outer walls all tapestried with moss, perhaps you would like a
description of the coronation-dinner!

You must know that "Ned," the Paganini of the Humboldt, (who, by the
way, is almost an historic, or, better perhaps, naval, character,
inasmuch as he was _cook_ on board of the Somers when her captain
performed his little tragedy, to the horror of an entire nation,) had
been in such a state of ecstasy ever since he had heard of the promised
advent of Mrs. ----, that his _proprietors_, as Ned grandly calls them,
had serious fears of being compelled to strait-jacket him.

"You see, sir," said Ned, "when the queen" (with Ned, as with the rest
of the world, "a substitute shines brightly as a queen until a queen be
by,"--and I am the only petticoated astonishment on this Bar) "arrives,
_she_ will appreciate my culinary efforts. It is really discouraging,
sir, after I have exhausted my skill in preparing a dish, to see the
gentlemen devour it with as much unconcern as though it had been cooked
by a mere bungler in our art"!

When we entered our new home, we found the cloth--it was a piece left
of that which lined the room overhead--already laid. As it was unhemmed
and somewhat tattered at the ends, an imaginative mind might fancy it
fringed on purpose, though, like the poor little Marchioness with her
orange-peel and water, one would have to _make believe_ very hard.
Unfortunately, it was not wide enough for the table, and a dashing
border of white pine banded each side of it. Ned had invested an
unknown quantity of gold-dust in a yard of diaper,--awfully
coarse,--which, divided into four pieces, and fringed to match the
tablecloth, he had placed napkin-wise in the tumblers. He had evidently
ransacked the whole bar to get viands wherewith to decorate the various
dishes, which were as follows.

_First Course_
OYSTER SOUP

_Second Course_
FRIED SALMON CAUGHT FROM THE RIVER

_Third Course_
ROAST BEEF & BOILED HAM

_Fourth Course_
FRIED OYSTERS

_Vegetables_
POTATOES & ONIONS

_Pastry_
MINCE PIE, & PUDDING MADE WITHOUT EGGS OR MILK

_Dessert_
MADEIRA NUTS & RAISINS

_Wines_
CLARET & CHAMPAGNE

_Coffee_

I found that Ned had not overrated his powers. The dinner, when one
considers the materials of which it was composed, was really excellent.
The soup was truly a great work of art; the fried oysters dreamily
delicious; and as to the coffee, Ned must have got the receipt for
making it from the very angel who gave the beverage to Mahomet to
restore that individual's decayed moisture.

Ned himself waited, dressed in a brand-new flannel shirt and calico
ditto, his hair--he is a light mulatto--frizzled to the most intense
degree of corkscrewity, and a benign and self-satisfied smile
irradiating his face, such as _should_ illumine the features of a great
artist when he knows that he has achieved something, the memory of
which the world will not willingly let die. In truth, he needed but
white kid gloves to have been worthy of standing behind the chair of
Count d'Orsay himself. So grand was his air, so ceremonious his every
motion, that we forgot we were living in the heart of the Sierra
Nevada; forgot that our home was a log cabin of mere primitive
rudeness; forgot that we were sitting at a rough pine table covered
with a ragged piece of four-cent cotton cloth, eating soup with iron
spoons!

I wish, my funny little Molly, that you could have been here
clairvoyantly. It was one of those scenes, just touched with that fine
and almost imperceptible _perfume_ of the ludicrous, in which you
especially delight. There are a thousand minute shreds of the absurd
which my duller sense overlooks, but which never can hope to escape
your mirth-loving vision.

Ned really plays beautifully on the violin. There is a white man, by
the name of "Chock," who generally accompanies him. Of course, true
daughter of Eve that you are, you will wish to know "right off" what
Chock's _other_ name is. Young woman, I am ashamed of you! Who ever
asks for the _other_ name of Alexander, of Hannibal, of Homer? Suffice
it that he is Chock by himself,--Chock, and assistant violinist to
Paganini Vattal Ned.

Ned and one of his musical cronies--a white man--gave me a serenade the
other evening. As it was quite cold, F. made them come inside the
cabin. It was the richest thing possible, to see the patronizing and
yet serene manner with which Ned directed his companion what marches,
preludes, etc., to play for the amusement of that profound culinary and
musical critic, Dame Shirley.

It must be confessed that Ned's love of the beautiful is not quite so
correct as his taste in cooking and violin-playing. This morning a
gentle knock at my door was followed by that polite person, bearing in
triumph a small waiter, purloined from the Humboldt, on which stood in
state, festooned with tumblers, a gaudy pitcher, which would have
thrown Tearsoul and Lelie into ecstasies of delight. It was almost as
wonderful a specimen of art as my chintz hanging. The groundwork is
pure white, upon which, in bas-relief, are _executed_ two
diabolical-looking bandits, appallingly bewhiskered and mustached,
dressed in red coats, yellow pantaloons, green boots, orange-colored
caps with brown feathers in them, and sky-blue bows and arrows. Each of
the fascinating vagabonds is attended by a bird-of-paradise-colored
dog, with a crimson tail waggingly depicted. They are embowered beneath
a morning-glory vine, evidently a species of the Convolvulus unknown in
America, as each one of its pink leaves, springing from purple stems,
is three times the size of the bandit's head.

Ned could not have admired it more if it had been a jar of richest
porcelain or a rare Etruscan vase, and when I gently suggested that it
was a pity to rob the barroom of so elegant an ornament, he answered,
"Miners can't appreciate a handsome pitcher, any more than they can
good cooking, and Mrs. ---- will please to keep it."

Alas! I would infinitely have preferred the humblest brown jug, for
that really _has_ a certain beauty of its own, and, besides, it would
have been in keeping with my cabin. However, that good creature looked
upon the miraculous vegetable, the fabulous quadrupeds, and the
impossible bipeds, with so much pride that I had not the heart to tell
him that the pitcher was a fright, but, graciously accepting it, I hid
it out of sight as quickly as possible, on the trunk wash-stand behind
the curtain.

We breakfast at nine and dine at six, with a dish of soup at noon for
luncheon. Do not think we fare as sumptuously _every_ day as we did at
the coronation-dinner. By no means; and it is said that there will
probably be many weeks, during the season, when we shall have neither
onions, potatoes, nor fresh meat. It is feared that the former will not
keep through the whole winter, and the rancheros cannot at all times
drive in cattle for butchering, on account of the expected snow.

Ned is not the only distinguished person residing on this Bar. There is
a man camping here who was one of Colonel Fremont's guides during his
travels through California. He is fifty years of age perhaps, and
speaks several languages to perfection. As he has been a wanderer for
many years, and for a long time was the principal chief of the Crow
Indians, his adventures are extremely interesting. He chills the blood
of the green young miners, who, unacquainted with the arts of war and
subjugation, congregate around him by the cold-blooded manner in which
he relates the Indian fights that he has been engaged in.

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 a

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