 INTRODUCTION to the Shirley Letters. The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851–52. Being a series of twenty-three letters from Dame Shirley, Mrs. Louise Amelia Knapp Smith clap, to her sister in Massachusetts, and now reprinted from the Pioneer Magazine of 1854 and 55. INTRODUCTION. 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 clap, 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. Knapp, 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, actorateur 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 fervour, 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 swashbuckling, 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 Clap 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 Honorable Osmond 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 pin. 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 colourful 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 stagecoach carried her. It was 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 charged a feugue in the Netherlands and a 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 the 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 the 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 him near her as an attaché, and when she hints of her engagement to a young physician, he jealously begs to know every detail concerning the happy man. Surely, married Dr. Fayette Clape, 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 Manila. 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 the 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 farrow 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, and 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. Clap when he eased a trivial pain. All these thrills were calls to the gold-filled mother-earth. Finally Dr. Clap'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 to his wife to join him, and she had varying experiences in transit to the prospective home, which was at Rich Bar. Rich, indeed, were 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 face-ale pin. Here was her mine. Out of her brain, out of her soul, out of her heart of gold, out of the wealth of understanding of and love for her fellow man, gratefully sprang those Shirley letters that have enriched the fields 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 Hart 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 on-looking minors, 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 relieving 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 and billed with a thin face and a finely shaped head. Her limbs were perfect in symmetry. As a girl, doubtless she had claimed to a delicate beauty. She now showed the wear and tear of her mountain experience coupled with an accumulation of heartbreaking 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 Hart, 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 notables 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 gypsying 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 Charlie 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 Osoli 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 stagecoach 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 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-week 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 we're 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 artwork. Before leaving San Francisco her faithful pupils and other friends gave a musical and realized about two thousand dollars, which was presented to 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 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 Hart's accomplished and delightful wife and her attractive children, while Bret Hart himself was sojourning in Europe, a successful author. Mrs. John F. Swift, her long-time appreciative friend, Charlie 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 Goldfields, Dame Shirley is abroad, and again she is weaving her wizard spell. of the introduction. Recorded by Rachel Allen, Mariposa, California. December, 2007. Letter 1 of the Shirley Letters. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851 and 52 by Dame Shirley, Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clapp. Letter I. 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 faraway 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 post-script of this epistle it will be fully and completely relieved. And first I will merely observe, en peissant, reserving a full description of its discovery for a further letter, that said Bar forms a part of a mining settlement situated on the east branch of the North Fork of Feather River, a way off up in the mountains, as our little fair soul 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 locale, while I proceed to tell you of the propitious, or un-propitious, as the result will prove, winds which blew us hitherward. You already knew that F, after suffering for an entire year with fever and egg, and bilious, remittant, 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 favourable 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 mid-summer when he passed over it. He arrived at Rich Bar the latter part of June, and found the revivifying effects 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 hell 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 straight jacket, 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. And others, sagely observed, with a profound knowledge of the habits and customs of the Aborigines of California, that even if the Indians did not kill me, I should expire of ennui or the cold before spring. One lady declared in a burst of outraged modesty that it was absolutely indelicate to think of living in such a large population of men, where at the most there were about two or three women. I laughed merrily at their mournful prognostications and started gaily for Marysville, where I arrived in a couple of days ready to commence my journey to Rich Bar. By the way I may as well begin the chapter of accidents which distinguished it by recounting our mule ride from a ranch ten miles distant from Marysville, where, as I had spent part of the summer, the larger portion of my wardrobe still remained. We had stopped there for one night to enable me to arrange my trunks for the journey. You have no idea of the hand-to-mouth sort of style in which most men in this country are in the habit of living. Of course, as usual with them, the person who had charge of the house was out of provisions when we arrived. Luckily I had dined a couple of stages back, and as we intended to leave on the following day for Marysville, I did not mind the scanty fare. The next morning friend P. contrived to gather together three or four dried biscuits, several slices of hard salt ham, and some poisonous green tea, upon which we breakfasted. Unfortunately a man whom F. was expecting on important business did not arrive until nearly night, so I had the pleasure of sitting half the day, robed, hatted, and gauntleted for my ride. Poor P. had been deep in the mysteries of the severest kind of an ague since ten o'clock, and as we had swept the house of everything in the form of bread early in the morning, and nothing remained but the aforesaid ham, it was impossible to procure any refreshment. About half an hour before sunset, having taken and affecting farewell of the turkeys, the geese, my darling chickens, about eighty a number to nearly every one of which I had given an appropriate name, the dog, a horrid little imp of a monkey, poor P. and his pet ague, we started merrily for Marysville, intending to arrive there about supper time. But, as has been said at least a thousand times before, man proposes, and God disposes, for scarcely had we lost sight of the house, when all of a sudden I found myself lying about two feet deep in the dust, my saddle, being too large for the mule, having turned and deposited me on that safe but disagreeable couch. F, of course, was sadly frightened, but as soon as I could clear my mouth and throat from dirt, which filled eyes, nose, ears, and hair, not being in the least hurt, I began to laugh like a silly child, which had the happy effect of quite reassuring my good sposo. But such a looking object as I was I am sure you never saw. It was impossible to recognize the original colour of habit, hat, boots, or gloves. F wished me to go back, put on clean clothes, and make a fresh start, but you know, M, that when I make up my mind to do it, I can be as willful as the gentlest of my sex, so I decidedly refused, and the road being very lonely, I pulled my veil over my face, and we jogged merrily onward, with but little fear of shocking the sensibilities of passing travellers by my strange appearance. As F feared another addition of my downfall, he would not allow the mules to canter or trot, so they walked all the way to Marysville, where we arrived at midnight. There we came with an ace of experiencing number two of the accidents by taking our nuke Dimitris in the form of a death by starvation. We had not eaten since breakfast, and as the fires were all extinguished, and the servants had retired at the hotel, we of course could get nothing very nourishing there. I had no idea of regaling my fainting stomach upon pie and cheese, even including those tempting and sawdustiest of luxuries, crackers. So F, dear soul, went to a restaurant and ordered a petit soupet to be sent to our room. Hot oysters, toast, tomatoes, and coffee, the only nourishment procurable at that hour of the night, restored my strength, now nearly exhausted by want of food, falling from my mule, and sitting for so many hours in the saddle. The next morning F was taken seriously ill with one of his billious attacks, and did not leave his bed until the following Saturday, when he started for Bidwell's Bar, a rag-city about thirty-nine miles from Marysville, taking both the mules with him, and leaving me to follow in the stage. He made this arrangement because he thought it would be easier for me than riding the entire way. On Monday, the eighth of September, I seated myself in the most excruciatingly springless wagon 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 pequant 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, formed 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 oseae, woven with a neatness which is absolutely marvellous, 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 hair-brat from their usual track, we must be dashed into eternity. Wonderful to relate, I did not oh, or 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, while I guess you're the first woman that ever rode over that 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 filming 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 Mary'sville. As there was nothing to sleep in but a tent, and nothing to sleep on but the ground, and the air was black with 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. 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 mid-summer'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 gaiety, however, I now began to wonder why we did not arrive at our intended lodgings. F reassured me by saying that when we had descended this hill or ascended that, we should certainly be there. But ten o'clock came—eleven—twelve—one—two. But no, Bury 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 the moment longer. Of course there was nothing to do but 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 travelling 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 Barry 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 downhill, 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 Bidwells, withhold that we were seven miles from the Barry 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 on to 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 various 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. Oh, 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 a saddle for nearly twenty-four hours without refreshment. When we stopped, F carried me into the house and laid me on to 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 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 that 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 Yankees, 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 squas, 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. Oh, 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 mockingbird 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 silk and jet swept heavily upward from her dusky cheek, a thwart which the richest color came and went like flashes of lightning. Her flexible lips curved slightly away from teeth like strips of coconut meat, with a mocking grace infinitely bewitching. She wore a cotton chemise—discustingly 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 wild wood 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 leather-stalking 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 than 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 centre 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 caudalised 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 pretty-man 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, in as much 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 crème de la crème of voracity, 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 splendour 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 seemed 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-a-thwart our path. Two or three times, in the radiant distance, we describe 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 chaparrales, covered with low shrubs which, leafless and barkless, stand like vegetable skeletons along the dreary waste. You cannot imagine what a weird effect these eldritch 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 that 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 weirisome 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. Everyone 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 half way 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 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 daintly 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 centre 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 eye. 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. End of Letter 1. Recorded by Rachel Allen, Yosemite, California, January 23, 2008 Letter 2 of the Shirley Letters. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851 and 52 by Dame Shirley. Louise Amelia Knapp-Smith Clap. Letter 2. Rich Bar, Its Hotels and Pioneer Families. Rich Bar, East Branch of the North Forkha 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 brought the 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 every other shanty on the bar claims the same grand eloquent title. Indeed, for that matter, California herself might be called the Hotel State, so completely as 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, and 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 bar room, 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 toothed ensemble of dazzling splendor. A table covered with a green cloth, upon which lies a pack of Monte Cards, a bat-gammon board, and a sickening pile of yellow-covered 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 bar-room 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-bottomed chairs, 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 oil cloth, and bedsteads so heavy that nothing short of a giant 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 unfortunate 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 honour 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 grey-haired mothers, majestic in their sanctified old age, these brothers of virginal sisters, white and saint-like as the lilies of their own gardens, looked only with contempt or pity on these, oh, so earnestly to be compassioned 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 and 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-month-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 appall 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 Paws 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 minor'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 bar room to-day, and her sweet and bird-like voice brought tearfully and yet joyfully to my memory, tear-soul, lelly, and lilacate. 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 minor's home. Mem, the lady-tens-bar. Voila, my dear, the female population of my new home! Splendid material for social parties this winter, are they not? And of Letter II. Recorded by Rachel Ellen February 2, 2008, in Yosemite, California. Letter III of the Shirley Letters. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851 and 52 by Dame Shirley Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clapp Letter III 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 Im, to be as disagreeably statistical and as praise-worthily 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 himmed in by lofty hills, almost perpendicular, drapery'd to their very summits with beautiful fir trees, the blue bosomed plumas, or Feather River, I suppose I must call it, undilating along their base, and you have as good an idea as I can give you of the locale of Bararica, as the Spaniard 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 humour of making one's wrists ache by knocking to pieces gloomy-looking stones, or in dirtying one's fingers by analysing 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 colour and the infinite variety of styles in which she delights to rope 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 hornblend, 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, then to any interest in the dry science itself. It is therefore with the most humiliating consciousness of my geological deficiencies that I offer you the only explanation which I have been able to obtain from those 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 40 tenements, among which figure round tents, square tents, plank hovels, log cabins, etc., the residence is 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. Today 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, grinny deers of capitals, that this was Dr. Blank'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 prosic 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 jingles 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 Godes, Grams, and Sartons magazines, among which fashion plates with imaginary monsters sporting miraculous wastes, 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 and turkey as the turkeys do, assisted the company in drinking, to the honour 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 twentieth of July 1850 it was rumoured 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 rumour 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, pickaxe, and shovel, and started for the new Dorado. They travelled and travelled and travelled, 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 them out on that night, the remainder stopping on the summit until the next morning. On arriving at Rich Bar, part of the adventures 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 the 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 as 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, Wyandotte, and Muggins, 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 Monty 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 Monty, 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 who 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 labour 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 yanky hardyhood, 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. End of Letter III. Recorded by Rachel Ellen at Yosemite, California, February 5, 2008. Letter IV of the Shirley Letters. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Shirley Letters from California Mines, in 1851 and 52, by Dame Shirley, Louise Amelia Knapp-Smith-Clap. Letter IV. 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 Irocephalus, 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 nurse's man, some of them it is true, kind and good, others neglectful and careless. A few weeks since, F was called 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 at 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 chilenio 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 dink 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 buyer, the place of the latter being supplied by ropes, up the steep hill which rises behind the empire on top of which is situated the burial-ground of rich bar. The bears were all neatly and cleanly dressed in their miners' costume which, consisting of a flannel shirt, almost always of a dark blue colour, pantaloons with the boots drawn up over them, and a low-crowned broad-brimmed black-velled 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 the philosophy so beautiful and so poetical, make their most cheerful resort. Singularly enough, Christians seemed 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 wreath 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 buyer, particularly the first, which, as Dickon 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 shadow-land through a gate of flowers, if we may no longer, as in the majestic golden 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 our smiles and tears! My eyes were yet moist from the egotistical pitié 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 chillennial 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 règles, I ought to have been shocked and horrified, to have shed salt tears, and have uttered melancholy Jeremiah 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 today is the anniversary of the independence of Chile. The process got up in honour 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 false staffion proportions and colouring, and if a brandy barrel ever does come alive, and donning a red shirt and buckskin trousers, but take itself to pedestrianism, it will look more like my hero than anything else that I can at present think of. With that affectionate-ness 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 Chileño. Alas for the wickedness of human nature, the latter, whose drunkenness had taken a bironic and misanthropical turn, rejected with the basest ingratitude these delicate attentions. Do not think that my incarnated brandy casque 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 minds, was removed, a twenty-gallon keg of brandy was placed in the centre, 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 neighbour an 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 partial to my own beloved countrymen, that, though the Chileños reeled with a better grace, the Americans did it more naturally. The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851 and 52 by Dame Shirley Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clap 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, my 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 of 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 the 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 cambrick. 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 minds 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 of six years of age, was running gaily 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 people 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. 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 neighbouring montee 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 montee-table cover-paul, 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 seems as if it must disturb the pale sleeper within. Today I called at the residence of Mrs. R. It is a canvas house containing a suite of three apartments, as Dick Swivillor would say, which, considering that they were all on the ground floor, are kept surprisingly neat. There is a bar-room 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 earned her old man, said individual twenty-one years of age, perhaps, nine hundred dollars in nine weeks, clear of all expenses, by a 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 Lee Hunt was wont to gaze upon that friend of his, who used to elevate the common place to a pitch of the sublime, and he looked at me as if to say, that by no means gloriously arrayed, I was a mere cumbre 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 cambrick pocket handkerchiefs, while in San Francisco. But a lucky thought came into my mind, as all men cannot be Napoleon Bonaparte, 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 ring 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. call on us today 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 the 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 gaiety when speaking of her dead parent, and I said to our hostess, what a cold-blooded little wretched 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 the 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. End of Letters 5 Recorded by Rachel Allen at Yosemite, California, April 9, 2008 Letters 6 of The Shirley Letters This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Shirley Letters from California Mines, in 1851-52, by Dame Shirley Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clap Letter 6 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 minds 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-blaggard 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 bar-room 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 live long night, painfully suggestive of a suffering child. But, oh 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 disposition upon mining prospects. Pray forgive me, even though I confess that I intend, someday, when I feel statistically inclined, to bore you with some profound remarks upon the claiming, drifting, snoozing, ditching, fluming, and coyoteing politics of the Diggins. But to return to my sleep-murders. 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 favourite 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 Star-Eve till Dewy Morn. I've answered that he has a wager on the subject, as all the other puppies seem bitten by the betting mania. A propo of dogs, I found dear old Dake, the noble Newfoundland which H. gave us, looking 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 Pulbian 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 recognised 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 propincities of the rich Baurians. Those, of course, would shock you, but, though you hate slaying, I know that you could not help smiling at some of their bizarre cant-phrases. For instance, if you tell a rich Baurian 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 adoration. 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 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 pickaxe about his clothes, and F himself gratefully 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 sent 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 Kant phrases to their origin, but most of those in vogue here would, I verily believe, puzzle horn took himself. The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851 and 52 by Dame Shirley Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clapp. Letter VII. 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 a non-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 colour, 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 labourers 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-coloured snake amid the lofty verger 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 colours 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 and all, including those formed of calico-shirts and pine-bows. 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 colour. Not a spot of verger 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 all 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 spelled 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 bar-room 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 breaths of which, being sewn 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 bud-hood up to the ravishing beauty of the last rose of summer. Nor has he confined himself to the colours 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 multi-flores. 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 the 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, as 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-dute-y as fire-dogs. I suppose that it would be no more than civil to call a whole 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 impassable 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 work-box, 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 it would be a great deal of trouble to get them made, I was feigned 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 neighbourhood, 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 oil-cloth 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 oil-cloth for it, but there was none at any of the bars. At last Ned, the Humboldt Paganini, referred to old multi-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 forelegs 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 centre of it, but a real Britannia ware candlestick. The space between is gaily ornamented with Eves Mircham, 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, Spencer, Colleridge, 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 theatres, no fresh books, no shopping, calling, nor gossiping little tea-drinkings, no parties, no balls, no picnics, no tablo's, 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, Spencer, Paul, Coleridge, Burns, and Shelley, which are never old. In good sooth I fancy that nature intended me for an era 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 clerid cases, where lanterns are not broken bottles, bookcases not candle-boxes, and trunks not wash-dands, 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 humdrum is 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. End of Letters 7. Recorded by Rachel Ellen at Yosemite, California, April 19, 2008.