 1851 and 52 by Dame Shirley, Louise Amelia Knapp-Smith-Clap. 15. Mining Methods, Miners, Gamblers, etc. From our log-cabin, Indian Bar, April 10, 1852. I have been haunted all day, my dear M, with an intense ambition to write you a letter which shall be dreadfully commonplace and severely utilitarian in its style and contents, not but that my epistles are always commonplace enough, spirits of Montague and Sevenia forgive me, but hitherto I have not really tried to make them so. Now, however, I intend to be stupidly prosy, with malice aforethought, and without one mitigating circumstance, except, perchance, it be the temptations of that above-mentioned ambitious little devil to palliate my crime. You would certainly wonder, were you seated where I am now, how any one with a quarter of a soul could manufacture herself into a bore amid such surroundings as these. The air is as balmy as that of a Midsummer's Day in the sunniest valleys of New England. It is four o'clock in the evening, and I am sitting on a cigar-box outside of our cabin. From this spot not a person is to be seen except a man who was building a new wing to the Humboldt. Not a human sound, but a slight noise made by the aforesaid individual and tacking on a roof of blue drilling to the room which he is finishing, disturbs the stillness which fills this purest air. I confess that it is difficult to fix my eyes upon the dull paper, and my fingers upon the duller pen with which I am soiling it. Almost every other minute I find myself stopping to listen to the ceaseless river song, or to gaze up into the wondrous depths of the California heaven, to watch the graceful movements of the pretty brown lizards jerking up their impudent little heads above a moss-rod log which lies before me, or to mark the dancing water-shadow on the canvas door of the bake-shop opposite. To follow with childish eyes the flight of a golden butterfly, curious to know if it will crown with the capital of winged beauty that column of nature's carving, the pine stump rising at my feet, or whether it will flutter down, for it is dallying coquettishly around them both, upon that slate-rock beyond, shining so darkly lustrous through a flood of yellow sunlight, or I lazily turn my head, wondering if I know the blue or red-shirted miner who is descending that precipitous hill behind me. In soothe molly it is easy to be commonplace at all times, but I confess that, just at present, I find it difficult to be utilitarian. The saucy lizards, the great orange-dotted butterflies, the still solemn cedars, the sailing smoke-reath, and the vaulted splendor above, are wooing me so winningly to hire things. But, as I said before, I have an ambition that way and I will succeed. You are such a good-natured little thing, dear, that I know you will meekly allow yourself to be victimized into reading the profound and prosy remarks which I shall make in my efforts to initiate you into the mining polity of this place. Now you may rest assured that I shall assert nothing upon the subject which is not perfectly correct, for have I not earned a character for inquisitiveness, and you know that that does not happen to be one of my failings, which I fear will cling to me through life by my persevering questions to all the unhappy miners from whom I thought I could gain any information? Did I not martyrise myself into a human mule by descending to the bottom of a dreadful pit, suffering mortal terror all the time lest it should cave in upon me, actuated by a virtuous desire to see with my own two eyes the process of underground mining, thus enabling myself to be stupidly correct in all my statements thereupon? Did I not ruin a pair of silk velvet slippers, lame my ankles for a week, and draw a browner horror over my already sunburned face, in a weariesome walk, miles away, to the head of the ditch, as they call the prettiest little rivulet, though the work of men, that I ever saw? Yea, verily, this have I done for the express edification of yourself and the rest of your curious tribe, to be rewarded, probably, by the impertinent remark, what, does that little goose Dame Shirley think that I care about such things? But, madam, in spite of your sneer, I shall proceed in my allotted task. In the first place, then, as to the discovery of gold. In California, at least, it must be confessed that, in this particular, science appears to be completely at fault, or, as an intelligent and well-educated minor remarked to us the other day. I maintain that science is the blindest guide that one could have on a gold-finding expedition. Those men who judge by the appearance of the soil, and depend upon geological calculations, are invariably disappointed, while the ignorant adventurer, who digs just for the sake of digging, is almost sure to be successful. I suppose that the above observation is quite correct, as all whom we have questioned upon the subject repeat, in substance, the same thing. Wherever geology has said that gold must be, there, perversely enough, it lies not, and wherever her ladyship has declared that it could not be, there it has oftenest garnered up in miraculous profusion the yellow splendour of its virgin beauty. It is certainly very painful to a well-regulated mind to see the irreverent contempt shown by this beautiful mineral to the dictates of science. But what better can one expect from the root of all evil, as well as can be ascertained the most lucky of the mining columbuses have been ignorant sailors, and foreigners, I fancy, are more successful than Americans. Our countrymen are the most discontented of mortals. They are always longing for big strikes. If a claim is paying them a steady income, by which, if they pleased, they could lay up more in a month than they could in a year at home, still they are dissatisfied, and in most cases will wander off in search of better diggings. There are hundreds now pursuing this foolish course, who, if they had stopped where they first camped, would now have been rich men. Sometimes a company of these wanderers will find itself upon a bar where a few pieces of the precious metal lie scattered upon the surface of the ground. Of course they immediately prospect it, which is accomplished by panning out a few basinfuls of the soil. If it pays, they claim the spot and build their shanties. The news spreads that wonderful diggings have been discovered at such a place. The Monty-dealers, those worse than fiends, rush, vulture-like upon the scene and erect around tent, where, in gambling, drinking, swearing, and fighting, the Monty-reproduced pandemonium in more than its original horror, while a few, honestly and industriously, commence digging for gold, and lull, as if a fairy's wand had been waved above the bar, a full-grown mining town hath sprung into existence. But first let me explain to you the claiming system. As there are no state laws upon the subject, each mining community is permitted to make its own. Here they have decided that no man may claim an area of more than forty feet square. This he stakes off, and puts a notice upon it, to the effect that he holds it for mining purposes. If he does not choose to work it immediately, he is obliged to renew the notice every ten days, for, without this precaution, any other person has a right to jump it, that is, to take it from him. There are many ways of evading the above law. For instance, an individual can hold as many claims as he pleases if he keeps a man at work in each, for this workman represents the original owner. I am told, however, that the labourer himself can jump the claim of the very man who employs him if he pleases to do so. This is seldom, if ever done. The person who is willing to be hired generally prefers to receive the six dollars per diem, of which he is sure in any case, to running the risk of a claim not proving valuable. After all, the holding of claims by proxy is considered rather as a carrying out of the spirit of the law than as an evasion of it. But there are many ways of really outwitting this rule, though I cannot stop now to relate them, which give rise to innumerable arbitrations, and nearly every Sunday there is a miner's meeting connected with this subject. Having got our gold mines discovered and claimed, I will try to give you a faint idea of how they work them. Here in the mountains the labour of excavation is extremely difficult, on account of the immense rocks which form a large portion of the soil. Of course no man can work out a claim alone. For that reason, and also for the same that makes partnerships desirable, they congregate in companies of four or six, generally designating themselves by the name of the place whence the majority of the members have emigrated, as, for example, the Illinois, Bunker Hill, Bay State, etc. companies. In many places the surface soil, or in mining phrase, the top dirt, pays when worked in a long tom. This machine, I have never been able to discover the derivation of its name, is a trough, generally about twenty feet in length and eight inches in depth, formed of wood with the exception of six feet at one end called the riddle. Query, why riddle? Which is made of sheet-iron perforated with holes about the size of a large marble. Underneath this colander-like portion of the long tom is placed another trough, about ten feet long, the size six inches, perhaps in height, which, divided through the middle by a slender slat, is called the riffle-box. It takes several persons to manage properly a long tom. Three or four men station themselves with spades at the head of the machine, while at the foot of it stands an individual armed with the shovel and hoe. The spadesmen throw in large quantities of the precious dirt, which is washed down through the riddle by a stream of water, leading into the long tom through wooden gutters or sluices. When the soil reaches the riddle, it is kept constantly in motion by the men with the hoe. Of course, by this means all the dirt and gold escapes through the perforations into the riffle-box below, one compartment of which is placed just below the riddle. Most of the dirt washes over the sides of the riffle-box, but the gold, being so astonishingly heavy, remains safely at the bottom of it. When the machine gets too full of stones to be worked easily, the man whose business it is to attend to them throws them out with his shovel, looking carefully among them as he does so for any pieces of gold which may have been too large to pass through the holes of the riddle. I am sorry to say that he generally loses his labour. At night they pan out the gold which has been collected in the riffle-box during the day. Many of the miners decline washing the top dirt at all, but try to reach as quickly as possible the bedrock, where are found the richest deposits of gold. The river is supposed to have formerly flowed over this bedrock, in the crevices of which it left, as it passed away, the largest portions of the so eagerly sought-for ore. The group of mountains amidst we are living is a spur of the Sierra Nevada, and the bedrock, which in this vicinity is of slate, is said to run through the entire range, lying in distance varying from a few feet to eighty or ninety, beneath the surface of the soil. On Indian Bar the bedrock falls in almost perpendicular benches, while at rich Bar the friction of the river has formed it into large, deep basins, in which the gold, instead of being found, as you would naturally suppose, in the bottom of it, lies, for the most part, just below the rim. A good-natured individual bored me, and tired himself, in a hopeless attempt to make me comprehend that this was only a necessary consequence of the undercurrent of the water, but with my usual stupidity upon such matters I got but a vague idea from his scientific explanation, and certainly shall not mystify you with my confused notions thereupon. When a company wished to reach the bedrock as quickly as possible, they sink a shaft, which is nothing more nor less than digging a well, until they strike it. They then commence drifting coyote-holes, as they call them, in search of crevices which, as I told you before, often pay immensely. These coyote-holes sometimes extend hundreds of feet into the side of the hill. Of course they are obliged to use lights in working them. They generally proceed until the air is so impure as to extinguish the lights, when they return to the entrance of the excavation, and commence another, perhaps close to it. When they think that a coyote-hole has been faithfully worked, they clean it up, which is done by scraping the surface of the bedrock with a knife, lest by chance they have overlooked a crevice, and they are often richly rewarded for this precaution. Now I must tell you how those having claims on the hills procure the water for washing them. The expense of raising it in any way from the river is too enormous to be thought of for a moment. In most cases it is brought from ravines in the mountains. A company, to which a friend of ours belongs, has dug a ditch about a foot in width and depth, and more than three miles in length, which is fed in this way. I wish that you could see this ditch. I never beheld a natural streamlet more exquisitely beautiful. It undulates over the mossy roots and the gray old rocks like a capricious snake, singing all the time a low song with the liquidest murmur, and one might almost fancy it the airy and coquettish andine herself. When it reaches the top of the hill, the sparkling thing is divided into five or six branches, each one of which supplies one, two, or three long toms. There is an extra one, called the waste ditch, leading to the river, into which the water is shut off at night and on Sundays. This race, another and peculiar name for it, has already cost the company more than five thousand dollars. They sell the water to others at the following rates. Those that have the first use of it pay ten percent upon all the gold that they take out. As the water runs off from their machine, it now goes by the elegant name of tailings. It is taken by a company lower down, and as it is not worth so much as when it was clear, the latter pay but seven percent. If any others wish the tailings now still less valuable than at first, they pay four percent on all the gold which they take out, be it much or little. The water companies are constantly in trouble, and the arbitrations on that subject are very frequent. I think that I gave you a vague idea of fluming in a former letter. I will not therefore repeat it here, but will merely mention that the numerous fluming companies have already commenced their extensive operations upon the river. As to the rockers, so often mentioned in story and in song, I have not spoken of them since I commenced this letter. The truth is that I have seldom seen them used, though hundreds are lying ownerless along the banks of the river. I suppose that other machines are better adapted to mining operations in the mountains. Gold mining is nature's great lottery scheme. A man may work in acclaim for many months, and be poorer at the end of the time than when he commenced, or he may take out thousands in a few hours. It is a mere matter of chance. A friend of ours, a young Spanish surgeon from Guatemala, a person of intelligence and education, told us that after working acclaim for six months he had taken out but six ounces. It must be acknowledged, however, that if a person work his claim himself, is economical and industrious, keeps his health, and is satisfied with small gains, he is bound to make money. And yet I cannot help remarking but almost all with whom we are acquainted seem to have lost. Some have had their claims jumped. Many holes, which had been excavated and prepared for working at a great expense, caved in during the heavy rains of the fall and winter. Often, after a company has spent an immense deal of time and money in sinking a shaft, the water from the springs, the greatest obstacle which the miner has to contend with in this vicinity, rushes in so fast that it is impossible to work in them or to contrive any machinery to keep it out, and for that reason only men have been compelled to abandon places where they were at the very time taking out hundreds of daughters a day. If a fortunate or an unfortunate, which shall I call him, does happen to make a big strike, he is almost sure to fall into the hands of the professed gamblers, who soon relieve him of all care of it. They have not troubled the bar much during the winter, but as the spring opens they flock in like ominous birds of prey. Last week one left here, after a stay of four days, with over a thousand dollars of the hard-earned gold of the miners. But enough of these best beloved of Beelzebub, so infinitely worse than the robber or murderer, for surely it would be kinder to take a man's life than to poison him with the fatal passion for gambling. Perhaps you would like to know what class of men is most numerous in the mines. As well as I can judge there are upon this river as many foreigners as Americans. The former, with a few exceptions, are extremely ignorant and degraded, though we have the pleasure of being acquainted with three or four Spaniards of the highest education and accomplishments. Of the Americans the majority are of the better class of mechanics. Next to these in number are the sailors and the farmers. There are a few merchants and steamboat clerks, three or four physicians, and one lawyer. We have no ministers. The fourteen miles from here there is a rancho kept by a man of distinguished appearance, an accomplished Monty-dealer and horse-jockey who is said to have been, in the States, a preacher of the gospel. I know not if this be true, but at any rate such things are not uncommon in California. I have spun this letter out until my head aches dreadfully. How tiresome it is to write sensible things, but I have one comfort, though my epistle may not be interesting. You will not deny, my dear M, that I have achieved my ambition of making it both commonplace and utilitarian. CHAPTER XIX THE SHIRLEY LETTERS FROM CALIFORNIA MINDS IN 1851 AND 52 by Dame Shirley, Louise Amelia Knapp-Smith Clapp. LETTER XVI Birth, stabbing, foreigners ousted, revels. From our log cabin, Indian Bar, May 1st, 1852. You have no idea, my good little M, how reluctantly I have seated myself to write to you. The truth is that my last tedious letter about mining and other tiresome things has completely exhausted my scribbling powers, and from that hour to this the epistolary spirit has never moved me forward. Whether on that important occasion my small brain received a shock from which it will never recover, or whether it is pure physical laziness which influenced me, I know not, but this is certain, that no whipped schoolboy ever crept to his hated task more unwillingly than I to my writing desk on this beautiful morning. Perhaps my indisposition to soil paper in your behalf is caused by the bewildering scent of that great glorious bouquet of flowers which, gathered in the crisp mountain air, is throwing off cloud after cloud, each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears, of languid sweetness, filling the old dark room with incense, and making of it a temple of beauty like those pure angelic souls which, irradiating a plain countenance, often render it more lovely than the chiseled finish of the most perfect features. Oh, Molly, how I wish that I could send you this jar of flowers, containing, as it does, many which in New England are rare exotics. Here you will find in richest profusion the fine lady elegance of the syringa. There, glorious white lilies so pure and stately, the delicate yet robust beauty of the exquisite privet, irises of every hue and size, and, prettiest of all, a sweet snow-tinted flower looking like immense clusters of seed-pearl which the Spaniards call libla. But the marvel of the group is an orange-colored blossom of a most rare and singular fragrance growing somewhat in the style of the flocks. This, with some branches of pink bloom of incomparable sweetness, is entirely new to me. Since I have commenced writing, one of the doctor's patients has brought me a bunch of wild roses. Oh, how vividly, at the sight of them, started up before me those wooded valleys of the Connecticut, with their wondrous depths of foliage, which, for a few weeks in Midsummer, are perhaps unsurpassed in beauty by any in the world. I have arranged the dear home blossoms with a handful of flowers which were given to me this morning by an unknown Spaniard. They are shaped like an enemy of the opaque whiteness of the Magnolia, with a large spot of glittering blackness at the bottom of each petal. But enough of our mountain-earth stars it would take me all day to describe their infinite variety. Nothing of importance has happened since I last wrote, except that the Canaka wife of a man living at the junction has made him the happy father of a son and heir. They say that she is quite a pretty little woman, only fifteen years old, and walked all the way from Sacramento to this place. A few evenings ago a Spaniard was stabbed by an American. It seems that the presumptuous foreigner had the impertinence to ask very humbly and meekly that most noble representative of the stars and stripes if the latter would pay him a few dollars which he had owed him for some time. His high mightiness the Yankee was not going to put up with any such impertinence, and the poor Spaniard received for answer several inches of cold steel in his breast which inflicted a very dangerous wound. Nothing was done, and very little was said about the atrocious affair. At rich bar they have passed a set of resolutions for the guidance of the inhabitants during the summer, one of which is to the effect that no foreigner shall work in the mines on that bar. This has caused nearly all the Spaniards to immigrate upon Indian bar, and several new houses for the sale of liquor, et cetera, are building by these people. It seems to me that the above law is selfish, cruel, and narrow-minded in the extreme. When I came here the Humboldt was the only public house on the bar. Now there are the Oriental, Golden Gate, Don Juan, and four or five others, the names of which I do not know. On Sundays the swearing, drinking, gambling, and fighting which are carried on in some of these houses are truly horrible. It is extremely healthy here. With the exception of two or three men who were drowned when the river was so high I have not heard of a death for months. Nothing worth wasting ink upon has occurred for some time except the capture of two grizzly bear-cubs by the immortal yank. He shot the mother, but she fell over the side of a steep hill and he lost her. Yank intends to tame one of the cubs, the other he sold, I believe, for fifty dollars. They are certainly the funniest-looking things that I ever saw, and the oddest possible pets. By the way, we receive an echo from the outer world once a month, and the expressmen never fails to bring three letters from my dear M, wherewith to gladden the heart of her sister, Dame Shirley. End of LETTERS XVI. Recorded by Rachel Ellen, near Yosemite, California, August 3rd, 2008. LETTER XVII. 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 MINDS, IN 1851 and 1952, by Dame Shirley, Louise Amelia Knapp-Smith-Clap. LETTER XVII. SUPPLIES BY PACKMULES, KANAKAS, AND INDIANS. FROM OUR LOG CABIN, INDIAN BAR, MAY 25, 1852. The very day after I last wrote you, dear M, a troupe of mules came onto the bar, bringing us almost forgotten luxuries in the form of potatoes, onions, and butter. A band of these animals is always a pretty sight, and you can imagine that the solemn fact of our having been destitute of the above-mentioned edibles since the middle of February did not detract from the pleasure with which we saw them winding cautiously down the hill, stepping daintily here and there with those absurd little feet of theirs, and appearing so extremely anxious for the safe conveyance of their loads. They belonged to a Spanish packer, were in excellent condition, sleek and fat as so many kittens, and of every possible colour—black, white, grey, sorrel, cream, brown, etc.—almost all of them had some bit of red or blue or yellow about their trappings which added not a little to the brilliancy of their appearance, while the gay tinkle of the leader's bell, mingling with those shrill and peculiar exclamations with which Spanish muleteers are in the habit of urging on their animals, made a not unpleasant medley of sounds. But the creamiest part of the whole affair was—I must confess it unromantic as it seems—when the twenty-five or thirty pretty creatures were collected into the small space between our cabin and the Humboldt, such a gathering together of ham and mackerel-fed bipeds, such a lavish display of gold dust, such troops of happy-looking men bending beneath the delicious weight of butter and potatoes, and above all such a smell of fried onions as instantaneously arose upon the fragrant California air, and ascended gratefully into the blue California heaven was, I think, never experienced before. On the first of May a train had arrived at Rich Bar, and on the morning of the day which I have been describing to you one of our friends arose some three hours earlier than usual, went over to the aforesaid bar, bought twenty-five pounds of potatoes at forty cents a pound, and packed them home on his back. In less than two days afterwards half a dozen cargoes had arrived, and the same vegetable was selling at a shilling a pound. The trains had been on the road several weeks, but the heavy showers, which had continued almost daily through the month of April, had retarded their arrival. Last week I rode on horseback to a beautiful bar called the Junction, so named from the fact that at that point the east branch of the North Fork of Feather River unites itself with the main North Fork. The mule trail, which lies along the verge of a dreadful precipice, is three or four miles long, while the footpath leading by the river is not more than two miles in length. The latter is impassable on account of the log bridges having been swept away by the recent freshets. The other day two oxen lost their footing and fell over the precipice, and it is the general opinion that they were killed long before they reached the golden palace of the Plumerian Thetis. I was a little alarmed at first, for fear my horse would stumble, in which case I should have shared the fate of the unhappy bees, but soon forgot all fear in the enchanting display of flowers which each opening and the shrubs displayed to me. Earth's firmament was starred with daffneys, irises, and violets of every hue and size, pale wood and eminies, but with one faint sigh of fragrance as they expired, by hundreds beneath my horse's tread, and spotted tiger-lilies with their stately heads all bedisoned in orange and black, marshalled along the path like an army of gaily glad warriors. But the flowers are not all of an oriental character. Do you remember, molly dear, how you and I once quarreled when we were, oh, such mites of children about a sprick of syringa? The dear mother was obliged to interfere, and to make all right she gave you a small brown bud of most penetrating fragrance which, she told you, was much more valuable than the contested flower. I remember perfectly that she failed entirely in convincing me that the dark, somber flower was half as beautiful as my pretty cream-tinted blossom, and, if I mistake not, you were but poutingly satisfied with the substitute. Here, even if we retained, which I do not, our childish fascination for syringas, we should not need to quarrel about them, for they are as common as dandelions in a New England meadow, and dispense their peculiar perfume, which, by the way, always reminds me of Lubin's choices sense, in almost sickening profusion. Besides the above-mentioned flowers, we saw wild roses and butter- cups and flocks and privet, and whole acres of wand-like lily. I have often heard it said, though I cannot vouch for the truth of the assertion, that it is only during the month of January that you cannot gather a bouquet in the mountains. Just before one reaches the junction there is a beautiful grove of oaks, through which there leaps a gay little rivulet celebrated for the grateful coolness of its waters. Of course, one is expected to propitiate this pretty undine by drinking a draught of her glittering waters from a dirty tin cup, which some benevolent cold-water man has suspended from a tree near the spring. The bank, leading down into the stream, is so steep that people generally dismount and leave their animals across it, but F. declared that I was so light that the horse could easily carry me, and insisted upon my keeping the saddle. Of course, like a dutiful wife, I had nothing to do but to obey. So I grasped firmly the reins, shut my eyes, and committed myself to the fates that take care of thistle-seeds, and lo! the next moment I found myself safely on the other side of the brook, my pretty steed, six weeks ago he was an Indian pony running wild on the prairie, curviting about and arching his elegant neck, evidently immensely proud of the grace and ease with which he had conveyed his burden across the brook. In a few moments we alighted at the store which is owned by some friends of F, whom we found looking like so many great daisies in their new shirts of pink calico, which had been donned in honour of our expected arrival. The junction is the most beautiful of all the bars. From a store one can walk nearly a mile down the river quite easily. The path is bordered by a row of mingled oaks and furs, the former garlanded with mistletoe, and the latter embroidered with that exquisitely beautiful moss which I tried to describe in one of my first letters. The little Kanaka woman lives here. I went to see her. She is quite pretty, with large lustrous eyes, and two great braids of hair which made me think of black satin cables, they were so heavy and massive. She has good teeth, a sweet smile, and a skin not much darker than that of a French brunette. I never saw any creature so proud as she, almost a child herself, was of her baby. In jest I asked her to give it to me, and really was almost alarmed at the vehement burst of tears with which she responded to my request. Her husband explained the cause of her distress. It is a superstition among her people that he who refuses to give another anything, no matter what. There are no exceptions which that other may ask for, will be overwhelmed with the most dreadful misfortunes. Her own parents had parted with her for the same reason. Her pretty girlish face soon resumed its smiles when I told her that I was in jest, and, to console me for the disappointment which she thought I must feel at not obtaining her little brown treasure, she promised to give me the next one. It is a Kanaka custom to make a present to the person calling upon them for the first time, in accordance with which habit I received a pair of dove-coloured boots, three sizes too large for me. I should have liked to visit the Indian encampment which lies a few miles from the junction, but was too much fatigued to attempt it. The Indians often visit us, and as they seldom wear anything but a very tight and very short shirt they have an appearance of being, as Charles Dickens would say, all legs. They usually sport some kind of headdress, if it is nothing more than a leather string, which they bind across their dusky brows in the style of the wreaths in Norma, or the gay ribbons garlanding the hair of the Roman youth in the play of Brutus. A friend of ours, who has visited their camp several times, has just given me a description of their mode of life. Their huts, ten or twelve in number, are formed of the bark of the pine, conically shaped, plastered with mud, and with a hole in the top, whence emerges the smoke which rises from a fire built in the centre of the apartment. These places are so low that it is quite impossible to stand upright in them, and are entered from a small hole in one side on all fours. A large stone, sunk to its surface in the ground, which contains three or four pan-like hollows for the purpose of grinding acorns and nuts, is the only furniture which these huts contain. The women, with another stone about a foot and a half in length and a little larger than a man's wrist, pulverize the acorns to the finest possible powder, which they prepare for the table, in the following manner. Their cooking utensils consist of a kind of basket, woven of some particular species of reed I should fancy, from the descriptions which I have had of them, and are so plated as to be impervious to fluids. These they fill half full of water, which is made to boil by placing in it hot stones. The latter they drag from the fire with two sticks. When the water boils, they stir into it until it is about as thick as hasty pudding, the powdered acorns, delicately flavored with dried grasshoppers. And lo! dinner is ready. Would you like to know how they eat? They place the thumb and little finger together across the palm of the hand, and make of the other three fingers a spoon, with which they shovel into their capacious mouths this delicious compound. There are about eighty Indians in all at this encampment, a very small portion of which number are women. A hostile tribe in the valley made a Sabine-like invasion upon the settlement a few months since, and stole away all the young and fair muchachas, leaving them but a few old squaws. These poor withered creatures, who are seldom seen far from the encampment, do all the drudgery. Their entire wardrobe consists of a fringe about two feet in length, which is formed of the branch or root, I cannot ascertain exactly which, of a peculiar species of shrub shredded into threads. This scanty costume they festoon several times about the person, fastening at just above the hips, and they generally appear in a startlingly unsophisticated state of almost entire nudity. They are very filthy in their habits, and my informant said that if one of them should venture out into the rain, grass would grow on her neck and arms. The men, unhappy martyrs, are compelled to be a little more cleanly from their custom of hunting and fishing, for the wind will blow off some of the dirt, and the water washes off more. Their infants are fastened to a framework of light wood, in the same manner as those of the North American Indians. When a squaw has anything to do, she very compositely sets this frame up against the side of the house, as a civilized housewife would an umbrella or broom. Some of their modes of fishing are very curious. One is as follows. These primitive anglers will seek a quiet deep spot in the river, where they know fish most do congregate, and throw therein a large quantity of stones. This, of course, frightens the fish which dive to the bottom of the stream, and Mr. Indian, plunging head foremost into the water, beneath which he sometimes remains several minutes, will presently reappear, holding triumphantly in each hand one of the Finney tribe, which he kills by giving it a single bite in the head or neck, with his sharp, knife-like teeth. Hardly a day passes during which there are not three or four of them on this bar. They often come into the cabin, and I never order them away, as most others do, for their childish curiosity amuses me, and as yet they have not been troublesome. There is one beautiful little boy, about eight years old, who generally accompanies them. We call him wild bird, for he is as shy as a partridge, and we have never yet been able to coax him into the cabin. He always wears a large red shirt, which, trailing to his little bronzed feet, and the sleeves every other minute dropping down over his dusky models of hands, gives him a very odd appearance. One day Mrs. B, whom I was visiting at the time, coaxed wild bird into the house to see Charlie, the hero of the champagne-basket cradle. The little fellow gazed at us with its large, startled eyes, without showing the least shadow of fear in his countenance, but his heart beat so violently that we could actually see the rise and fall of the old red shirt, which covered its trembling. Mrs. B made our copper-coloured cupidon a pretty suit of crimson calico. His protectors, half a dozen grim old Indians, it was impossible to tell which was his father, they all made such a petted darling of him, were compelled to array him in his new suit by main strength, he screaming dreadfully all the time. Indeed, so exhausted was he by his streaks that by the time he was fairly buttoned up in his crimson trappings, he sank on the ground in a deep sleep. The next day the barbarous little villain appeared trailing, as usual, his pet shirt after him at every step, while the dandy jacket and the trim baby trousers had vanished we never knew wither. The other morning an Indian appeared on the bar, robed from neck to heels in a large white sheet, and you have no idea of the classic grace with which he had arranged the folds about his fine person. We at first thought him a woman, and he himself was in an ecstasy of glee at our mistake. It is impossible to conceive of anything more light and airy than the step of these people. I shall never forget with what enchanted eyes I gazed upon one of them gliding along the side of the hill opposite Missouri Bar. One would fancy that nothing but a fly or a spirit could keep its footing on the rocks along which he stepped so stately, for they looked as perpendicular as a wall. My friend observed that no white man could have done it. This wild creature seemed to move as a cloud moves on a quiet day and summer, and as still and asidantly. It really made me solemn to gaze upon him, and the sight almost impressed me as something superhuman. Viewed in the most favorable manner, these poor creatures are miserably brutish and degraded, having very little in common with the lofty and eloquent aborigines of the United States. It is said that their entire language contains but about twenty words. Like all Indians they are passionately fond of gambling, and will exhibit as much anxiety at the losing or winning of a handful of beans as do their paler brothers when thousands are at stake. Me thinks, from what I have seen of that most hateful vice, the amount lost or won has very little to do with the matter. But let me not speak of this most detestable of crimes. I have known such frightful consequences to ensue from its indulgence that I dare not speak of it lest I use language, as perhaps I have already done, unbecoming a woman's lips. As if people have arrived upon our bar within the last few days, drinking saloons are springing up in every direction, the flumming operations are rapidly progressing, and all looks favourable for a busy and prosperous summer to our industrious minors. End of Letters 17, recorded by Rachel Ellen at Yosemite, California, August 4, 2008. Letters 18 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 Klap. Letter 18th. Fourth of July Festival. Spanish Attacked. From our log cabin, Indian Bar, July 5, 1852. Our Fourth of July celebration, Dear M., which came off at Rich Bar, was quite a respectable affair. I had the honour of making a flag for the occasion. The stripes were formed of cotton cloth and red calico, of which last gorgeous material no possible place in California is ever destitute. A piece of drilling, taken from the roof of the Humboldt, which the rain and the sun had faded from its original somber hue, to just that particular shade of blue which you and I admire so much, served for a union. A large star in the centre, covered with gold leaf, represented California. Humboldt, as were the materials of which it was composed, this banner made quite a gay appearance floating from the top of a lofty pine in front of the empire, to which it was suspended. I went over to Rich Bar at six in the morning, not wishing to take so fatiguing a walk in the heat of the day. After breakfast I assisted Mrs. B. and one of the gentlemen in decorating the dining room, the walls of which we completely covered with grapevines, relieved here and there with bunches of elder-blow. We made several handsome bouquets, and arranged one of syringas, white lilies, and the feathery green of the cedar, to be presented, in the name of the ladies, to the orator of the day. You can imagine my disgust when the ceremony was performed, to observe that some officious goth had marred the perfect keeping of the gift by thrusting into the vase several ugly purple blossoms. The exercises were appointed to commence at ten o'clock, but were deferred for half an hour in expectation of the arrival of two ladies who had taken up their abode in the place within the last six weeks, and were living on Indian Bar Hill. As they did not come, however, it was thought necessary to proceed without them. So Mrs. B. and myself were obliged to sit upon the piazza of the empire, comprising, in our two persons, the entire female audience. The scene was indeed striking. The green garland and hills girdling rich bar looked wonderfully beautiful, rising with their grand abrupt outlines into the radiant summer sky. A platform reared in front of the empire, beneath the banner-tassled pine, and arched with fragrant furbows, made the prettiest possible rustic rostrum. The audience, grouped beneath the awnings of the different shops, dressed in their coloured shirts, though here and there one might observe a dandy miner who had relieved the usual vestment by placing beneath it one of calico or white muslin, added much to the picturesqueness of the scene. Unfortunately the Committee of Arrangements had not been able to procure a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Its place was supplied by an apologetic speech from Mr. J., who will, without doubt, be the Democratic candidate for state representative at the coming election. This gentleman finished his performance by introducing Mr. B., the orator of the day, who is the Huig nominee for the above-mentioned office. Before pronouncing his address, Mr. B. read some verses which he said had been handed to him anonymously the evening before. I have copied them for your amusement. They are as follows, and are entitled. A Fourth of July Welcome to the Miners You are welcome, merry miners, in your blue and red shirts all. You are welcome, mid these golden hills, to your nation's festival. Though you've not shaved your savage lips nor cut your barbarous hair, ye are welcome, merry miners, all bearded as ye are. What though your brows are blushing at the kisses of the sun, and your once white and well-kept hands are stained as sober done. What though your backs are bent with toil, and ye have lost the air, with which ye bowed your stately heads amid the young and fair. I feign wood in my slender palm your horny fingers clasp, for I love the hand of honest toil its firm and heartfelt grasp. And I know, O Miners, brave and true, that not alone for self have ye heaped through many varying months your glittering pile of pelf. Ye of the dark and thoughtful eyes beneath the bronzed brow. Ye on whose smooth and rounded cheeks still gleams youth's purple glow. Ye of the reckless, daring life, ye of the timid glance. Ho, young and old, ho, grave and gay, to our nation's vet advance. Ho, sun-kissed brother from the south, where radiant skies are glowing. Ho, toiler from the stormy north, where snowy winds are blowing. Ho, buckeye, hoosier from the west, sons of the river great. Come shout Columbia's birthday song in the new golden state. Ho, children of Imperial France, ho, errands brave and true. Ho, England's golden bearded race, we feign would welcome you. And dark-eyed friends from those glad climes where Spain's proud blood is seen. To join in freedom's holy Psalm he'll not refuse, I wean. For now the banner of the frieze in very deed our own, and mid the brotherhood of states not ours the feeblest one, then proudly shout ye bushy men with throats all brown and bare, for lo, from mid-star flags brave blue leaps out a golden star. After reading the above lines, Mr. B. pronounced beautifully a very splendid oration. Unlike such efforts in general it was exceedling fresh and new, so that, instead of its being, that infliction that fourth of July orations commonly are, it was a high pleasure to listen to him. Perhaps, where nature herself is so original, it is impossible for even thought to be hackneyed. It is too long for a letter, but as the minors have requested a copy for publication, I will send it to you in print. About half an hour after the close of the oration the ladies from the hill arrived. They made a pretty picture descending the steep, the one with her wealth of floating curls turbaned in a snowy nubia, and her white dress set off by a crimson scarf, the other with a little Pamela hat placed coquettishly upon her brown braided tresses, and a magnificent Chinese shawl enveloping her slender figure. So lately arrived from the states, with everything fresh and new, they quite extinguished poor Mrs. B. and myself, trying our best to look fashionable in our antique mode of four years ago. The dinner was excellent. We had a real live captain, a very gentlemanly person, who had actually been in action during the Mexican War for president. Many of the toasts were quite spicy and original, one of the new ladies saying three or four beautiful songs, and everything passed off at Rich Bar quite respectively. To be sure there was a small fight in the bar room, which is situated just below the dining room, during which much speech and little blood were spouted. Whether the latter catastrophe was caused by a blow received or the large talking of the victim is not known. Two peacefully inclined citizens, who at the first battle-shout had rushed manfully to the rescue, returned at the subsiding of hostilities with blood bespattered shirt-bosoms, at which fearful sight the pretty wearer of the Pamela hat, one of the delinquents being her husband, chose to go faint and would not finish her dinner, which, as we saw that her distress was real, somewhat marred our enjoyment. On our way home, half a dozen gentlemen who preceded us stepped in front of a cabin full of infant phenomena and gave nine cheers for the mother and her children, which will show what her rarity, those embodiments of noise and disquiet, are in the mountains. This group of pretty darlings consists of three sweet little girls, slender, straight and white as ivory wands, moving with an incessant and staccato. Do you remember our old music lessons, activity which always makes me think of my hummingbirds? About five o'clock we arrived at home, just in time to hear some noisy shouts of, down with the Spaniards, the great American people forever, and other such similar cries, evident signs of quite a spirited fight between the two parties, which was, in reality, taking place at the moment. Seven or eight of the elite of rich bar, drunk with whisky and patriotism, were the principal actors in this unhappy affair, which resulted in serious injury to two or three Spaniards. For some time past there has been a gradually increasing state of bad feeling exhibited by our countrymen, increased we fancy by the ill treatment which our consul received the other day at Agapulco, toward foreigners. In this affair our own countrymen were principally to blame, or rather I should say Sir Barley Corn was to blame for many of the ringleaders our fine young men who, when sober, are decidedly friendly to the Spaniards. It is feared that this will not be the end of the fracas, though the more intelligent foreigners, as well as the judicious Americans, are making every effort to promote kindly feeling between the two nations. This will be very difficult on account of the ignorant prejudices of the low bread which class are a large proportion of both parties. It is very common to hear vulgar Yankees say of the Spanish, Oh, they are half civilized black men. These unjust expressions naturally irritate the latter, many of whom are highly educated gentlemen of the most refined and cultivated manners. We labor under great disadvantages in the judgment of foreigners, our peculiar political institutions, and the prevalence of common schools give to all our people an arrogant assurance which is mistaken for the American bow-ideal of a gentleman. They are unable to distinguish those nice shades of manner which as effectually separate the gentleman from the clown with us as do these broader lines which mark these two classes among all other nations. They think that it is the grand characteristic of Columbia's children to be prejudiced, opinionated, selfish, avaricious, and unjust. It is vain to tell them that such are not specimens of American gentlemen. They will answer. They call themselves gentlemen, and you receive them in your houses as such. It is utterly impossible for foreigners to thoroughly comprehend and make due allowance for that want of delicacy, and that vulgar, I'm as good as you are, spirit, which is, it must be confessed, peculiar to the lower classes of our people, and which leave the majority of them to enter a palace with their felt hat on, to address the king with the title of Mr., and ask him the price of the throne he sat on. The class of men who rule society in the minds are the gamblers who, for the most part, are reckless bad men, although no doubt there are many among them whose only vice is that fatal love of play. The rest of the people are afraid of these daring, unprincipled persons, and when they commit the most glaring injustice against the Spaniards it is generally past unnoticed. We have had innumerable drunken fights during the summer, with the usual amount of broken heads, collarbones, stabs, etc. Indeed the sabbaths are almost always enlivened by some such merry event, where at not for these affairs I might sometimes forget that the sweet day of rest was shining down upon us. Last week the dead body of a Frenchman was found in the river, near Missouri Bar. On examination of the body it was the general opinion that he had been murdered. Suspicion has, as yet, fallen upon no person. End of LETTER 18, recorded by Rachel Ellen, near Yosemite, California, August 4th, 2008. LETTER 18 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 1852, by Dame Shirley, Louise Amelia Knapp-Smith Clapp. LETTER 19. Murder, theft, riot, hanging, whipping, etc. From our log cabin, Indian Bar, August 4th, 1852. We have lived through so much of excitement for the last three weeks, dear M, that I almost shrink from relating the gloomy events that have marked their flight. But if I leave out the darker shades of our mountain life the picture will be very incomplete. In the short space of twenty-four days we have had murders, fearful accidents, bloody deaths, a mob, whippings, a hanging, an attempted suicide, and a fatal duel. But to begin at the beginning, as, according to rule, why not to do? I think that, even among these beautiful hills, I never saw a more perfect bridle of the earth and sky than that of Sunday, the 11th of July. On that morning I went with a party of friends to the head of the ditch, a walk of about three miles in length. I do not believe that nature herself ever made anything so lovely as this artificial brooklet. It glides like a living thing through the very heart of the forest, sometimes creeping softly on, as though with muffled feet, through a wilderness of aquatic plants, sometimes dancing gaily over a white pebbled bottom, now making a sunshine in a shady place across the mossy roots of the majestic old trees, and a naan leaping with the grand anthem around the great solemn rocks which lie along its beautiful pathway. A sunny opening at the head of the ditch is a garden of perfume shrubbery and many tinted flowers, all garlanded with the prettiest vines imaginable, and peopled with an infinite variety of magnificent butterflies. These last were of every possible colour, pink, blue, and yellow, shining black splashed with orange, purple flashed with gold, white, and even green. We returned about three in the evening, loaded with fragrant bundles, which arranged in jars, tumblers, pitchers, bottles, and pails. We are not particular as to the quality of our vases in the mountains, and love our flowers as well in their humble shallises as if their beautiful heads lay against the background of marble or porcelain, made the dark old cabin a bower of beauty for us. Shortly after our arrival, a perfectly deafening volley of shouts and yells elicited from my companion the careless remark that the customary Sabbath day's fight was apparently more serious than usual. Almost as he spoke there succeeded a death-like silence, broken in a minute after by a deep groan at the corner of the cabin, followed by the words, Why, Tom, poor fellow, are you really wounded? Before we could reach the door it was burst violently open by a person who inquired hurriedly for the doctor, who luckily happened at that very moment to be approaching. The man who called him then gave us the following excited account of what had happened. He said that in a melee between the Americans and the foreigners, Domingo, a tall majestic-looking Spaniard, a perfect type of the novelistic bandit of old Spain, had stabbed Tom Summers, a young Irishman, but a naturalized citizen of the United States, and that, at the very moment, said Domingo, with a Mexicana hanging upon his arm and brandishing threateningly the long bloody knife with which he had inflicted the wound upon his victim, was parading up and down the street, unmolested. It seems that when Tom Summers fell the Americans, being unarmed, were seized with a sudden panic and fled. There was a rumour, unfounded, it was afterwards proved, to the effect that the Spaniards had on this day conspired to kill all the Americans on the river. In a few moments, however, the latter rallied and made a rush at the murderer who immediately plunged into the river and swam across to Missouri Bar. Eight or ten shots were fired at him while in the water, not one of which hit him. He ran like an antelope across the flat, swam thanks to Smith's Bar, and escaped by the road leading out of the mountains from the junction. Several men went in pursuit of him, but he was not taken, and without doubt is now safe in Mexico. In the meanwhile the consternation was terrific. The Spaniards, who, with the exception of six or eight, knew no more of the affair than I did, thought that the Americans had arisen against them, and our own countrymen, equally ignorant, the same of the foreigners. About twenty of the latter, who were either sleeping or reading in their cabins at the time of the emute, aroused by the cry of, down with the Spaniards, barricaded themselves in a drinking saloon, determined to defend themselves as long as possible against the massacre which was fully expected would follow this appalling shout. In the bake-shop, which stands next door to our cabin, young Tom Summers lay straightened for the grave. He lived but fifteen minutes after he was wounded. While over his dead body a Spanish woman was weeping and moaning in the most piteous and heart-rending manner. The rich Barians, who had heard a most exaggerated account of the rising of the Spanish against the Americans, armed with rifles, pistols, clubs, dirks, etc., were rushing down the hill by hundreds. Each one added fuel to his rage by crowding into the little bakery to gaze upon the blood-bathed bosom of the victim, yet warm with the life which but an hour before it had so triumphantly worn. Then arose the most fearful shouts of, down with the Spaniards, drive every foreigner off the river, don't let one of the murderous devils remain. Oh, if you have a drop of American blood in your veins it must cry out for vengeance upon the cowardly assassins of poor Tom. All this, mingled with the most horrible oaths and execrations, yelled up as if in mockery into that smiling heaven, which, in its fair Sabbath calm, bent unmoved over the hell which was raging below. After a time the more sensible and sober part of the community succeeded in quieting, in a partial degree, the enraged and excited multitude. During the whole affair I had remained perfectly calm, in truth much more so than I am now when recalling it. The entire catastrophe had been so unexpected, and so sudden in its consummation, that I fancy I was stupefied into the most exemplary good behavior. F. and several of his friends, taking advantage of the lull in the storm, came into the cabin and entreated me to join the two women who were living on the hill. At this time it seemed to be the general opinion that there would be a serious fight, and they said I might be wounded accidentally if I remained on the bar. As I had no fear of anything of the kind I pleaded hard to be allowed to stop, but when told that my presence would increase the anxiety of our friends, of course like a dutiful wife I went on to the hill. We three women, left entirely alone, seated ourselves upon a log overlooking the strange scene below. The bar was a sea of heads, bristling with guns, rifles, and clubs. We could see nothing, but fancied from the apparent quiet of the crowd that the miners were taking measures to investigate the sad events of the day. All at once we were startled by the firing of a gun, and the next moment, the crowd dispersing, we saw a man led into the log cabin, while another was carried, apparently lifeless, into a Spanish drinking saloon. From one end of which were burst off instantly several boards, evidently to give air to the wounded person. Of course we were utterly unable to imagine what had happened, and, to all our perplexity and anxiety, one of the ladies insisted on believing that it was her own husband who had been shot, and as she is a very nervous woman, you can fancy our distress. It was in vain to tell her, which we did over and over again, that that worthy individual wore a blue shirt and the wounded person a red one. She doggedly insisted that her dear M had been shot, and, having informed us confidentially, and rather inconsistently, that she should never see him again, never, never, plumped herself down upon the log in an attitude of calm and ladylike despair, which would have been infinitely amusing had not the occasion been so truly a fearful one. Luckily for our nerves, a benevolent individual, taking pity upon our loneliness, came and told us what had happened. It seems that an Englishman, the owner of a house of the vilest description, a person who is said to have been the primary cause of all the troubles of the day, attempted to force his way through the line of armed men which had been formed at each side of the street. The guard very properly refused to let him pass. In his drunken fury he tried to arrest a gun from one of them, which, being accidentally discharged in the struggle, inflicted a severe wound upon a Mr. Oxley, and shattered in the most dreadful manner the thigh of Señor Pizarro, a man of high berth and breeding, a porteno of Buenos Aires. This frightful accident recalled the people to their senses, and they began to act a little less like madmen than they had previously done. They elected a vigilance committee and authorized persons to go to the junction and arrest the suspected Spaniards. The first act of the committee was to try a Mexicana who had been foremost in the fray. She has always worn male attire, and upon this occasion, armed with a pair of pistols, she fought like a very fury. Luckily, inexperienced in the use of firearms, she wounded no one. She was sentenced to leave the bar by daylight, a perfectly just decision, for there is no doubt that she is a regular little demon. Some went so far as to say she ought to be hanged, for she was the indirect cause of the fight. You see, always it is the old cowardly excuse of Adam and Paradise. The woman tempted me, and I did eat, as if the poor frail head, once so pure and beautiful, had not sin enough of its own, dragging it forever downward, without being made to answer for the wrongdoing of a whole community of men. The next day the committee tried five or six Spaniards, who were proven to have been the ring-leaders in the Sabbath-day riot. Two of them were sentenced to be whipped, the remainder to leave the bar that evening, the property of all to be confiscated to the use of the wounded persons. Oh, Mary, imagine my anguish when I heard the first blow fall upon those wretched men. I had never thought that I should be compelled to hear such fearful sounds, and although I immediately buried my head in a shawl, nothing can aface from memory the disgust and horror of that moment. I had heard of such things, but heretofore had not realized that in the nineteenth century men could be beaten like dogs, much less that other men not only could sentence such barbarism, but could actually stand by and see their own manhood degraded in such disgraceful manner. One of these unhappy persons was a very gentlemanly young Spaniard, who implored for death in the most moving terms. He appealed to his judges in the most eloquent manner, as gentleman, as men of honour, representing to them that to be deprived of life was nothing in comparison with than never to be a faced stain of the vilest convict's punishment to which they had sentenced him. Finding all his entreaties disregarded, he swore a most solemn oath that he would murder every American that he should chance to meet alone, and as he is a man of the most dauntless courage, and rendered desperate by a burning sense of disgrace which will cease only with his life, he will doubtless keep his word. Although in my very humble opinion, and in that of others more competent to judge of such matters than myself, these sentences were unnecessarily severe, yet so great was the rage and excitement of the crowd that the vigilance committee could do no less. The mass of the mob demanded fiercely the death of the prisoners, and it was evident that many of the committee took side with the people. I shall never forget how horror struck I was, bombastic as it now sounds, adhering no less a personage than the Whig candidate for representatives say that the condemned had better fly for their lives, for the Avenger of Blood was on their tracks. I am happy to say that said very worthy but sanguinary individual, the Avenger of Blood, represented in this case by some half-dozen gambling rowdies, either changed his mind or lost scent of his prey, for the intended victims slept about two miles up the hill quite peacefully until morning. The following facts, elicited upon the trial, throw light upon this unhappy affair. Seven miners from Old Spain, enraged at the cruel treatment which their countrymen had received on the fourth, and at the illiberal cry of down with the Spaniards, had united for the purpose of taking revenge on seven Americans, whom they believed to be the originators of their insults. All well-armed they came from the junction where they were residing at the time, intending to challenge each one his man, and in verified compel their insolent aggressors to answer for the arrogance which they had exhibited more than once toward the Spanish race. Their first move, upon arriving at Indian Bar, was to go and dine at the Humboldt, where they drank a most enormous quantity of champagne and claret. Afterwards they proceeded to the house of the Englishmen whose brutal carelessness caused the accident which wounded Pizarro and Oxley, when one of them commenced a playful conversation with one of his countrywomen. This enraged the Englishmen, who instantly struck the Spaniard a violent blow and ejected him from the shanty. Thereupon ensued a spirited fight, which, through the exertion of a gentleman from Chile, a favourite with both nations, ended without bloodshed. This person knew nothing of the intended duel or he might have prevented, by his wise councils, what followed. Not suspecting for a moment anything of the kind, he went to rich bar. Soon after he left, Tom Summers, who is said always to have been a dangerous person when in liquor, without any apparent provocation, struck Domingo, one of the original seven, a violent blow, which nearly felled him to the earth. The latter, a man of dark antecedents, and the most reckless character, mad with wine, rage and revenge, without an instant's pause drew his knife and inflicted a fatal wound upon his insultor. Thereupon followed the chapter of accidents which I have related. On Tuesday following the fatal Sabbath, a man brought news of the murder of a Mr. Bacon, a person well known on the river, who kept a ranch about twelve miles from rich bar. He was killed for his money by his servant, a negro, who, not three months ago, was our own cook. He was the last one anybody would have suspected capable of such an act. A party of men, appointed by the vigilance committee, left the bar immediately in search of him. The miserable wretch was apprehended in Sacramento, and part of the gold found upon his person. On the following Sunday he was brought in chains to rich bar. After a trial by the miners he was sentenced to be hanged at four o'clock in the evening. All efforts to make him confess proved futile. He said very truly that whether innocent or guilty they would hang him, and so he died and made no sign with the calm indifference, as the novelists say, worthy of a better cause. The dreadful crime and death of Josh, who, having been an excellent cook and very neat and respectful, was a favourite servant with us, added to the unhappiness which you can easily imagine that I was suffering under all these horrors. On Saturday evening, about eight o'clock, as we sat quietly conversing with the two ladies from the hill, whom, by the way, we found very agreeable additions to our society, hitherto composed entirely of gentlemen, we were startled by the loud shouting and the rushing close by the door of the cabin which stood open of three or four hundred men. Of course we feminins, with nerves somewhat shattered from the events of the past week, were greatly alarmed. We were soon informed that Henry Cooke, V. Josh, had in a fit of the delirium tremens cut his throat from ear to ear. The poor wretch was alone when he committed the desperate deed, and in his madness, throwing the bloody razor upon the ground, ran part of the way up the hill. Here he was found almost senseless and brought back to the Humbold, where he was very nearly the cause of hanging poor Paganini Ned, who returned a few weeks since from the valley, for his first act on recovering himself was to accuse that culinary individual of having attempted to murder him. The mob were for hanging one poor vattle without judge or jury, and it was only through the most strenuous exertions of his friends that the life of this illustrious person was saved. Poor Ned, it was forty-eight hours before his corkscrews returned to their original graceful curl. He threatens to leave us to our barbarism and no longer to waste his culinary talents upon an ungrateful and inappreciative people. He has sworn war to the knife against Henry, who was formerly his most intimate friend, as nothing can persuade him that the accusation did not proceed from the purest malice on the part of the would-be suicide. Their majesty's the mob, with that beautiful consistency which usually distinguishes those august individuals, insisted upon shooting poor Harry, for, said they, and the reasoning is remarkably conclusive and clear, a man so hardened as to raise his hand against his own life will never hesitate to murder another. They almost mobbed F for binding up the wounds of the unfortunate wretch, and for saying that it was possible he might live. At last, however, they compromised the matter by determining that if Henry should recover he should leave the bar immediately. Neither contingency will probably take place, as it will be almost a miracle if he survives. On the day following the attempted suicide, which was Sunday, nothing more exciting happened than a fight and the half-drowning of a drunken individual in the river, just in front of the Humboldt. On Sunday last the thigh of Sr. Pizarra was amputated, but alas, without success, he had been sick for many months with chronic dysentery, which, after the operation, returned with great violence, and he died at two o'clock on Monday morning, with the same calm and lofty resignation which had distinguished him during his illness. When first wounded, believing his case hopeless, he had decidedly refused to submit to amputation, but as time wore on he was persuaded to take this one chance for his life for the sake of his daughter, a young girl of fifteen at present at school in a convent in Chile, whom his death leaves without any near relative. I saw him several times during his illness, and it was melancholy indeed to hear him talk of his motherless girl, who, I have been told, is extremely beautiful, talented, and accomplished. The state of society here has never been so bad as since the appointment of a committee of vigilance. The rowdies have formed themselves into a company called the Moguls, and they parade the streets all night, howling, shouting, breaking into houses, taking wearied miners out of their beds and throwing them into the river, and in short, murdering sleep in the most remorseless manner. Nearly every night they build bonfires fearfully near some rag shanty, thus endangering the lives, or I should rather say the property, for as it is impossible to sleep, lives are emphatically safe, of the whole community. They retire about five o'clock in the morning, previously to this blessed event, posting notices to that effect, and that they will throw anyone who may disturb them into the river. I am nearly worn out for want of rest, for truly they make night hideous with their fearful uproar. Mr. Oxley, who still lies dangerously ill from the wound received on what we call the fatal Sunday, complains bitterly of the disturbances, and when poor Pissara was dying, and one of his friends gently requested that they be quiet for half an hour and permit the soul of the sufferer to pass in peace, they only laughed and yelled and hooted louder than ever in the presence of the departing spirit, for the tenement in which he lay, being composed of green-brows only, could, of course, shut out no sounds. Without doubt, if the moguls had been sober, they would never have been guilty of such horrible barbarity as to compel the thoughts of a dying man to mingle with curses and blasphemies, but, alas, they were intoxicated, and may God forgive them, unhappy ones, for they knew not what they did. The poor exhausted miners, for even well people cannot sleep in such a pandemonium, grumble and complain, but they, although far out numbering the rioters, are too timid to resist. All say, it is shameful, something ought to be done, something must be done, et cetera, and in the meantime the rioters triumph, you will wonder that the committee of vigilance does not interfere. It is said that some of that very committee are the ring leaders among the moguls. I believe I have related to you everything but the duel, and I will make the recital of this as short as possible, for I am sick of these sad subjects, and doubt not, but you are the same. It took place on Tuesday morning, at eight o'clock, on Missouri Bar, when and where that same Englishman who has figured so largely in my letter shot his best friend. The dualists were surrounded by a large crowd, I have been told, foremost among which stood the committee of vigilance. The man who received his dear friend's fatal shot was one of the most quiet and peaceable citizens on the bar. He lived about ten minutes after he was wounded. He was from Ipswich, England, and only twenty-five years old when his own high passions snatched him from life. In justice to his opponent it must be said that he would willingly have retired after the first shots had been exchanged, but poor Billy Leggett, as he was formally called, insisted upon having the distance between them shortened, and continuing the dual until one of them had fallen. There, my dear M., have I not fulfilled my promise of giving you a dish of horrors, and only think of such a shrinking, timid, frail thing as I used to be, long time ago, not only living right in the midst of them, but almost compelled to hear, if not see, the whole. I think I may without vanity affirm that I have seen the elephant. Did you see his tail? asks innocent Ada Jay in her mother's letter. Yes, sweet Ada, the entire animal has been exhibited to my view. But you must remember that this is California, as the newcomers are so fond of informing us, who consider ourselves one of the oldest inhabitants of the Golden State. And now, dear M., adios! Be thankful that you are living in the beautiful quiet of beautiful A., and give up hankering Arthur, as you know what dear creature says, California, for believe me, this coarse, barbarous life would suit you even less than it does your sister. California Mines in 1851 and 52, by Dame Shirley, Louise Amelia Knapp-Smith Klapp. Letter the twentieth. Murder, Mining Scenes, Spanish Breakfast. From our log cabin, Indian Bar, September 4, 1852. If I could coax some good-natured ferry, or some mischievous puck, to borrow for me the pen of Grace Greenwood, or Nathaniel P. Willis, I might be able to weave my stupid nothings into one of those airy fabrics, the value of which depends entirely upon the skillful work, or rather penmanship, which distinguishes it. I have even fancied that if I could steal a feather from the living opal swinging like a jeweled pendulum from the heart of the great Tiger Lily, which nods its turban head so stately within the mosquito net cage standing upon the little table, my poor lines would gather a certain beauty from the rainbow-tinted quill with which I might trace them. But as there is nobody magician enough to go out and shoot a ferry, or a brownie, and bind it by sign and spell to do my bidding, and as I have strong doubts whether my coarse fingers would be able to manage the delicate pen of a hummingbird, even if I could have the heart to rob my only remaining pet of its brilliant feathers, I am feigned to be content with one of Gillott's best, or no, of C. R. Sheeton's extra fine, although I am certain that the sentences following its hard stroke will be as stiff as itself. If they were only as bright, one might put up with the want of grace, but to be stiff and stupid both is too provoking. Is it not, dear M.? However, what must be must be, and as I have nothing to write about, and do not possess the skill to make that nothing graceful, and as you will fret yourself into a scold if you do not receive the usual amount of inked pages at the usual time, why, of course, I am bound to act, my first appearance on any stage I flatter myself in that character, the very original part of the bore, and you must prepare to be bored with what philosophy you may. But, without further preface, I will begin with one of the nothings. A few days after the death of the unfortunate Spaniard, related in my last letter, a large log, felled by some wickedly careless woodman, rolled down from one of the hills, and so completely extinguished the little ramada in which our poor friend lay at the time of his death, that you would never have imagined from the heap of broken branches that remain that it had ever once been a local habitation with such a pretty name. Providentially, at the time of the accident, none of those who had been in the habit of staying there were within. If Señor Pizarro had survived the amputation of his leg, it would only have been to suffer a still more terrible death, an accident which would have deepened, if possible, the gloom which we have suffered during the melancholy summer. There has been another murder committed within a few miles of this place which has given us something to gossip about, for the committee of vigilance had the good nature, purely for our amusement, I conclude, to apprehend a lucky individual. I call him lucky, advisedly, for he had all his expenses paid at the Humboldt, was remunerated for his lost time, enjoyed a holiday from hard work, had a sort of guard of honour composed of the most respectable men on the river, and was of more consequence for four days than he had ever been in the whole of his insignificant little life before, whom somebody fancied bore a faint resemblance to the description of the murderer. This interesting lion, I was so fortunate as to catch a glimpse of him one morning, and am convinced that he would roar you as gently as any sucking dove, was fully cleared from the suspected crime, and if, before his acquittal, one might have fancied from the descriptions of his countenance that none but that of Mephistopheles in the celebrated picture of the game of life could equal its terrific malignity, after accounts drew it a very Saint John's for sweet serenity of expression. What was then called sullenness, now took the name of resignation, and stupidity was quiet contempt. Indeed, I began to fear that they would give him a public triumph, and invite me to make the flag with which to grace it. I confess that I would almost have voted him a procession myself in gratitude for the amusement which he had given us. However, the committee were content with making him a handsome apology and present, and paying his expenses at the Humboldt. Oh, public opinion in the minds, thou art in truth a cruel thing, but, thank God, most fickle. The other day we were invited by a Spanish friend to breakfast at a garden situated half a mile from the junction, and owned by another Spaniard. It was a lovely morning in the latter part of August, and as we started about six o'clock the walk was a most delightful one. The river, filled with flumes, dams, etc., and crowded with busy miners, was as much altered from its old appearance as if an earthquake had frightened it from its propriety. I suppose that you are quite worn out with descriptions of walks, and I will spare you this once. I will not tell you how sometimes we were stepping lightly over immense rocks which a few months since lay fathoms deep, beneath the foaming plumas, nor how sometimes we were walking high above the bed of the river, from flume to flume, across a board connecting the two, nor how we were scrambling over the roots of the upturned trees, and now jumping tiny rivulets, nor shall I say a single word about the dizziness we felt as we crept by the deep excavations lying along the road, nor of the beautiful walk at the side of the wing-dam. It differs from a common dam in dividing the river lengthwise instead of a cross, the glittering water rising bluely almost to a level with the path. I do not think that I will ever tell you about the impromptu bath which one of the party took by tumbling accidentally into the river as he was walking gallantly behind us, which said bath made him decidedly disagree in our enthusiastic opinion of the loveliness of the promenade. No, I shall not say a single word upon any of these subjects, but leave them all to your vivid imagination. Corkscrews could not draw a solitary sentence from me, now that I have made up my mind to silence. But I will tell you about the driftings in the side of the hill, which we visited on our way. Not so much from a precious desire of enlightening your pitiable ignorance upon such subjects, you poor, untraveled little yanky woman, but to prove to you that, having fathomed the depths of shafts and threaded the mazes of coyote-holes, I intend to astonish the weak nerves of stay-at-home, if I ever return to New England, by talking learnedly upon such subjects as one having authority. These particular claims consist of three galleries lying about eighty feet beneath the summit of the hill, and have already been drifted from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet into its side. They are about five feet in height, slightly arched, the sides and roof formed of rugged rocks dripping with moisture, as if sweating beneath the great weights above. Lights are placed at regular distances along these galleries to assist the miners in their work, and boards laid on the wet ground to make a convenient path for the wheel-barrows which convey the dirt and sand to the river for the purpose of washing it. Wooden beams are placed here and there to lessen the danger of caving in, but I must confess that in spite of this precaution I was at first haunted with a horrible feeling of insecurity. As I became reassured I repeated loudly those glorious lines of Mrs. Hemons commencing with, for the strength of the hills we bless thee, O God, our Father's God. And a strange echo the gray rocks sent back as if the mind-demons, those ugly gnomes which German legends tell us work forever in the bowels of the earth, were shouting my words in mockery from the dim depths beyond. These claims have paid remarkably well, and if they hold out as they have commenced the owners will gather a small fortune from their summer's work. There is nothing which impresses me more strangely than the flooming operations, the idea of a mighty river being taken up in a wooden trough, turned from the old channel along which it has foamed for centuries perhaps, its bed excavated many feet in depth, and itself restored to its old home in the fall, these things strike me as almost a blasphemy against nature, and then the idea of men succeeding in such a work here in the mountains, with machinery and tools of the poorest description to say nothing of the unskilled workmen, doctors, lawyers, ministers, scholars, gentlemen, farmers, etc. When we arrived at the little oak opening described in a former letter we were, of course, in duty bound to take a draft from the spring which its admirers declare as the best water in all California. When it came to my turn I complacently touched the rusty tin cup, though I never did care much for water, in the abstract, as water. Though I think it very useful to make coffee, tea, chocolate, and other good drinks, I could never detect any other flavour in it than that of cold, and have often wondered whether there was any truth in the remark of a character in some play that, ever since the world was drowned in it, it had tasted of sinners. When we arrived at what may be called, in reference to the bar, the country seat of Don Juan, we were ushered into the parlor, two sides of which opened upon the garden and the grand old mountains which rise behind it, while the other two sides and the roof were woven with fresh willow boughs, crisply green, and looking as if the dew had scarce the yet dried from the polished leaves. After opening some cans of peaches, and cutting up some watermelons gathered from the garden, our friends went into, or rather out to, the kitchen fire. Two or three stones are generally the extent of this useful apartment in the mines. To assist in preparing the breakfast, and such a breakfast, if tager could do it when it chose, so can we miners. We had, but what did we not have? There were oysters which I am sure could not have been nicer had they just slid from their shells on the shore at Amboy, salmon in colour like the red red gold, venison with a fragrant spicy gusto as if it had been fed on cedar buds, beef cooked in the Spanish fashion, that is, strung on to a skewer and roasted on the coals, than which I never tasted better, preserved chicken, and almost every possible vegetable bringing up the rear. Then, for drinkables, we had tea, coffee, and chocolate, champagne, claret, and porter, with stronger spirits for the stronger spirits. We lacked but one thing, that was ice, which we forgot to bring from the bar, as only four miles from our cabin the snow never melts, that is a luxury we are never without, and indeed, so excessively warm has been the season, that without it, and the milk which has been brought us daily from a rancho five miles from here, we should have suffered. I must say that even though we had no ice, our mountain picnic, with its attendant dandies and their blue and red flannel shirts, was the most charming affair of the kind that I ever attended. On our return we called to see Yanks Cub, which is fast rising into young grizzly bearhood. It is about the size of a calf, very good-natured, and quite tame. Its acquirements, as yet our few, being limited to climbing a pole. Its education has not been conducted with that care and attention which so intelligent a beast merits, but it is soon, I hear, to be removed to the valley and placed under teachers capable of developing its wonderful talents to the utmost. We also stopped at Ashanti to get a large gray squirrel which had been promised to me some days before, but I certainly am the most unfortunate wretch in the world with pets. This spiteful thing, on purpose to annoy me, I do believe, went and got itself drowned the very night before I was to take it home. It is always so. I never had two humming birds with plumage like a sunset sky, but one was sure to fly away, and the other was sure to die. I never nursed a flying squirrel to glad me with its soft black eye, but it always ran into somebody's tent, got mistaken for a rat, and killed. There, M, there is poetry for you. Oh, the second verse doesn't rhyme. Doesn't. And it ain't original, is it? Well, I never heard that rhyme was necessary to make a poet, any more than colors to make a painter. And what if more did say the same thing twenty years ago? I am sure any writer would consider himself lucky to have an idea which has been anticipated but once. I am tired of being a mute and glorious Milton, and, like that grand old master of English song, would gladly write something which the world would not willingly let die, and having made that first step, as witnessed the above verses, who knows what will follow. Last night one of our neighbours had a dinner party. He came in to borrow a teaspoon. Had you not better take them all, I said. Oh, no, was the answer. That would be too much luxury. My guests are not used to it, and they would think that I was getting aristocratic and putting on heirs. One is enough. They can pass it round from one to the other. A blacksmith, not the learned one, has just entered, inquiring for the doctor who is not in, and he is obliged to wait. Shall I write down the conversation with which he is at this moment entertaining me? Oh, it is here, is his first remark, taking up one of my most precious books, and leaving the marks of his irreverent fingers upon the clean pages. Shakespeare, I answer, as politely as possible. Did spokeshave write it? He was an all mighty smart fellow. That spokeshave I hear and tell, replies my visitor. I must write home and tell our folks that this year is the first carpet I have seen since I came to California, four years come next month. Is his next remark. For the last half hour he has been entertaining me with a wearisome account of the murder of his brother by an Irishman in Boston, and the chief feeling which he exhibits is a fear that the jury should only bring in a verdict of manslaughter. But I hear F's step, and his entrance relieves me from the bore. I am too tired to write more. Alas, dear M, this letter is indeed a stupid one. A poor return for your pregnant epistles. It is too late to better it. The express goes at eight in the morning. The midnight moon is looking wanderingly in at the cabin window, and the river has a sleepy murmur that impels me irresistibly bedward. And of letter twenty, recorded by Rachel Allen, near Yosemite, California, August 6th, 2008. Letter twenty-one 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 the twenty-first. Discomforts of a trip to political convention. From our log cabin, Indian Bar, October 16th, 1852. Since I last wrote you, dear M., I have spent three weeks in the American Valley, and I returned there from humbled to the very dust when thinking of my former vain glorious boast of having seen the elephant. To be sure, if having fathomed to its very depths the power of mere existence, without any reference to those conventional aids which civilization has the folly to think necessary to the performance of that agreeable duty, was any criterion, I certainly fancied that I had a right to brag of having taken a full view of that most frequent specimen of the brute creation, the California Elephant. But it seems that I was mistaken, and that we miners have been dwelling in perfect palaces surrounded by furniture of the most gorgeous description, and reveling in every possible luxury. Well, one lives and learns, even on the borders of civilization. But to begin at the beginning, let me tell you the history of my dreadful pleasure tour to the American Valley. You must know that a convention had been appointed to meet at that place for the purpose of nominating representatives for the coming election. As F. had the misfortune to be one of the delegates, nothing would do but I must accompany him, for, as my health had really suffered through the excitements of the summer, he fancied that change of air might do me good. Mrs. Blank, one of our new ladies, had been invited to spend a few weeks in the same place at a residence of a friend of her husband, who was living there with his family. As Mr. Blank was also one of the delegates, we made up a party together, and, being joined by two or three other gentlemen, formed quite a gay cavalcade. The day was beautiful, but when is it ever otherwise in the mountains of California, we left the bar by another ascent than the one from which I entered the bar, and it was so infinitely less steep than the latter, that it seemed a mere nothing. You, however, would have fancied it quite a respectable hill, and Mr. Blank said so fearful did it seem to him the first time he went down it, that he vowed never to cross it but once more—a vow, by the way, which has been broken many times. The whole road was a succession of charming tableaux, in which sparkling streamlets, tiny waterfalls, frisky squirrels gleaming amid the foliage like a flash of red light, quails with their pretty grey plumage flecked with ivory, dandy jays, great awkward black crows, pert little lizards, innumerable butterflies, and a hundred other plumed insects winged and free like golden boats on a sunny sea, where the characters grouped in a frame of living green, curtained with the blue folds of our inimitable sky. We had intended to start very early in the morning, but, as usual on such excursions, did not get off until about ten o'clock. Somebody's horse came up missing, or somebody's saddle needed repairing, or somebody's shirt did not come home in season from the washer Chinaman, for if we do wear flannel shirts, we choose to have them clean when we ride out with the ladies, or something else equally important detained us. It was about nine o'clock in the evening when we reached the valley and rode up to Greenwood's Rancho, which, by the way, was the headquarters of the Democratic Party. It was crowded to overflowing, as our ears told us long before we came inside of it, and we found it utterly impossible to obtain lodgings there. This building has no windows, but a strip of crimson calico, placed halfway from the roof and running all round the house, lets in the red light, and supplies their place. However, we did not stop long to enjoy the pictorial effect of the scarlet windows, which really look very prettily in the night, but rode straight to the American Rancho, a quarter of a mile beyond. This was the headquarters of the Whigs, to which Party our entire company, excepting myself, belonged. Indeed, the gentlemen had only consented to call up the other house through compassion for the ladies, who were suffering from extreme fatigue, and they were rejoiced at the prospect of getting among birds of the same feather. There, however, we were informed that it was equally impossible to procure accommodations. In this dilemma, we could do nothing but accept Mrs. Blank's kind invitation and accompany her to the Rancho of her friend, although she herself had intended, as it was so late, to stop at one of the hotels for the night. We were so lucky as to procure a guide at this place, and with this desirable addition to the party, we started on. I had been very sick for the last two hours, and had only kept up with the thought that we should soon arrive at our journey's end, but when I found that we were compelled to ride three miles farther, my heart sank within me. I gave up all attempts to guide my horse, which one of the party led, leaned my head on the horn of my saddle, and resigned myself to my fate. We were obliged to walk our horses the entire distance, as I was too sick to endure any other motion. We lost our way once or twice, were exhausted with fatigue and faint with hunger, chilled through with the cold, and our feet wet with the damp night air. I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Blank, being very fleshy, was compelled to ride a stride, as it would have been utterly impossible for her to have kept her seat if she had attempted to cross those steep hills in the usual feminine mode of sitting a horse. She wore dark grey bloomers, and, with a cosseth hat and feather, looked like a handsome, chubby boy. Now, riding a stride, to one unaccustomed to it, is, as you can easily imagine, more safe than comfortable, and poor Mrs. Blank was utterly exhausted. When we arrived at our destined haven, which we did at last, the gentlemen of the house came forward and invited Mr. and Mrs. Blank to alight. Not a word was said to the rest of us, not even, good evening. But I was too far gone to stand upon ceremony, so I dismounted and made a brush for the cooking-stove, which, in company with an immense dining-table on which lay, enchanting sight, a quarter of beef, stood under a roof, the four sides open to the winds of heaven. As for the remainder of the party, they saw how the land lay and vermouthed departs unknown. Namely, the American rancho, where they arrived at four o'clock in the morning, some tired, I guess, and made such a fearful in-road upon the eatables that the proprietor stood aghast, and was only pacified by the ordering in from the bar of a most generous supply of the drinkable, which, as he sells it by the glass, somewhat reconciled him to the terrific onslaught upon the larder. In the meantime, behold me, with both feet perched upon the stove, and crouching over the fire in a vain attempt to coax some warmth into my thoroughly chilled frame. The gentleman and lady of the house, with Mr. and Mrs. Blank, are assembled in grand conclave in one room, of which the building consists, and as California houses are not planned with a view to eavesdroppers, I have the pleasure of hearing the following spirited and highly interesting conversation. There is a touching simplicity about it truly dramatic. I must premise that Mrs. Blank had written the day before to know if the visit, which her husband's friend had so earnestly solicited, would be conveniently received at this time, and was answered by the arrival, the next morning, for the use of herself and husband, of two horses, one of which I myself had the pleasure of riding, and found at a most excellent steed. Moreover, when Mr. Blank gave her the invitation, he said he would be pleased to have one of her lady friends accompany her, so you see she was armed and equipped as the law directed. Thus defended, she was ushered into the presence of her hostess, whom she found reclining gracefully upon a very nice bed, hung with snow-white muslin curtains, looking, for she is extremely pretty, though now somewhat pale, like a handsome wax doll. I am extremely sorry to find you unwell, pray when were you taken, and are you suffering much at present? commenced Mrs. Blank, supposing that her illness was merely an attack of headache or some other temporary sickness. Ah! groaned my lady in a faint voice, I have had a fever, and am just beginning to get a little better. I have not been able to sit up any yet, but hope to do so in a few days. As we have no servants, my husband is obliged to nurse me, as well as to cook for several men, and I am really afraid that, under the circumstances, you will not be as comfortable here as I could wish. But good heavens, my dear madam, why did you not send me word that you were sick? Surely you must have known that it would be more agreeable to me to visit you when you are in health? replied Mrs. Blank. Oh! returned our fair Invalid, I thought that you had set your heart upon coming, and would be disappointed if I postponed the visit. Now this was adding insult to injury. Poor Mrs. Blank, worn out with hunger, shivering with cold, herself far from well, a newcomer, unused to the makeshift ways which some people fancy essential to California life, expecting from the husband's representations, and knowing that he was very rich, so different a reception, and with all frank, perhaps to a fault, she must be pardoned if she was not as grateful as she ought to have been, and answered a little crossly. Well, I must say that I have not been treated well. Did you really think that I was so childishly crazy to get away from home that I would leave my nice plank house? It rose into palatial splendor when, compared with the flawless shanty, less comfortable than a Yankee farmer's barn in which she was standing, with its noble fireplace, nice-bored floor, two pleasant windows, and comfortable bed, for this wretched place, upon my word I am very much disappointed. However, I do not care so much for myself as for poor Mrs. Blank, whom I persuaded to come with me. What! Is there another lady? Almost shrieked, and well she might, under the circumstances, the horror-stricken hostess. You can sleep with me, but I am sure I do not know what we can do with another one. Certainly, was the bold reply of Mrs. Blank, for she was too much provoked to be embarrassed in the least. Availing myself of your husband's kind permission, I invited Mrs. Blank, who could not procure lodgings at either of the hotels, to accompany me. But even if I were alone, I should decidedly object to sleep with a sick person, and should infinitely prefer wrapping myself in my shawl and lying on the ground to being guilty of such a piece of selfishness. Well, groaned the poor woman, Jonathan, or Ichabod, or David, or whatever was the domestic name of her better half, I suppose that you must make up some kind of a bed for them on the ground. Now, M., only fancy my hearing all of this, wasn't it a fix for a sensitive person to be in, but instead of bursting into tears and making myself miserable, as once I should have done, I enjoyed the contra-tent immensely. It almost cured my headache, and when Mrs. Blank came to me and tried to soften matters, I told her to spare her pretty speeches, as I had heard the whole and would not have missed it for anything. In the meantime, the useful little man, combining in his small person the four functions of husband, cook, nurse, and gentleman, made us a cup of tea and some soleratus biscuit, and though I did test soleratus biscuit, and was longing for some of the beef, yet by killing the taste of the alkali with onions, we contrived to satisfy our hunger, and the tea warmed us a little. Our host, in his capacity of chambermaid, had prepared us a couch. I was ushered into the presence of the fair invalid, to whom I made a polite apology for my intrusion. My feet sank nearly to the ankles in the dirt and small stones, as I walked across her room. But how shall I describe to you the sufferings of that dreadful night? I have slept on tables, on doors, and on trunks. I have reclined on couches, on chairs, and on the floor. I have lain on beds of straw, of corn husks, of palm leaf, and of oxide. I remember one awful night spent in a bed-buggy berth, on board the packet-boat on one of the lakes. In my younger days I used to allow myself to be stretched upon the pro-crusties bed of other people's opinion, though I have got bravely over such folly, and now I generally act, think, and speak as best pleases myself. I slept two glorious nights on the bare turf, with my saddle for a pillow, and God's kindly sky for a quilt. I had heard of a bed of thorns, of the soft side of a plank, and of the bed-rock. But all my bodily experience, theoretical or practical, sinks into insignificance before a bed of cobblestones. Nothing in ancient or modern history can compare with it, unless it be the Irishman's famous down-couch, which consisted of a single feather laid upon a rock. And like him, if it had not been for the name of it, I should have preferred the bare rock. They said that there was straw in the ticking upon which we lay, but I should never have imagined so from the feeling. We had neither pillows nor sheets, but the coarsest blue blankets, and not enough of them, for bed-clothes, so that we suffered with cold, to add to our other miseries. And then the fleas. Well, like the Grecian artist who availed the face whose anguish he dared not attempt to depict, I will leave to your imagination that blackest portion of our strange experiences on that awful occasion. What became of Mr. Blank, our host, on this dreadful night, was never known. Mrs. Blank and I held counsel together and concluded that he was spirited away to some friendly haystack, but as he himself maintained a profound silence on this subject, it remains to this hour an impenetrable mystery, and will be handed down to posterity on the page of history with that of the man in the iron mask, and the more modern, but equally insolvable riddle of, who struck Billy Patterson. As soon as it was light we awoke and glanced around the room. On one side hung a large quantity of handsome dresses, with a riding habit, hat, gauntlets, whip, saddle, and bridle, all of the most elegant description. On the other side a row of shelves contained a number of pans of milk. There was also a very pretty table-service of white crockery, a roll of white carpeting, boxes of soap, chests of tea, casks of sugar, bags of coffee, etc., etc., in the greatest profusion. We went out into the air. The place, owned by our host, is the most beautiful spot that I ever saw in California. We stood in the midst of a noble grove of the loftiest and largest trees, through which ran two or three carriage roads, with not a particle of undergrowth to be seen in any direction. Somewhere near the center of this lovely place he is building a house of hewn logs. It will be two stories high and very large. He intends finishing it with the piazza all around, the first floor windows to the ground, green blinds, etc. He informed us that he thought it would be finished in three weeks. You can see that it would have been much pleasanter for Mrs. Blank to have had the privilege of deferring her visit for a month. We had a most excellent breakfast, as Mrs. Blank said, the good people possessed everything but a house. Soon after breakfast, my friends, who suspected from appearances the night before that I should not prove a very welcome visitor, came for me, the wife of the proprietor of the American Rancho, having good-naturedly retired, to the privacy of a covered wagon. She had just crossed the plains and placed her own room at my disposal. Mrs. Blank insisted upon accompanying me until her friend was better. As she truly said, she was too unwell herself to either assist or amuse another invalid. My apartment, which was built of logs, was vexatiously small, with no way of letting in light except by the door. It was as innocent of a floor, and almost as thickly strewn with cobblestones as the one which I had just left, but then there were some frames built against the side of it, which served for a bedstead, and we had sheets which, though coarse, were clean. Here, with petticoats, stockings, shoes, and shirts hanging against the logs in picturesque infusion, we received calls from senators, representatives, judges, attorney generals, doctors, lawyers, officers, editors, and ministers. The convention came off the day after our arrival in the valley, and as both of the nominees were from our settlement, we began to think that we were quite a people. Horse-racing and gambling, in all their detestable varieties, were the order of the day. There was pharaoh and poker for the Americans, Monty for the Spaniards, Lonskene for the Frenchmen, and smaller games for the outsiders. At the close of the convention, the rancho passed into new hands, and as there was much consequent confusion, I went over to Greenwood's, and Mrs. Blank returned to the house of her friend, where, having ordered two or three armfuls of hay to be strewn on the ground, she made a temporary arrangement with some boards for a bedstead, and fell to making sheets from one of the innumerable rolls of cloth which lay about in every direction, for, as I said before, these good people had everything but a house. My new room, with the exception of its red calico window, was exactly like the old one. Although it was very small, a man and his wife—the latter was the housekeeper of the establishment—slept there also, with the aid of those everlasting blue blankets I curtained off our part, so as to obtain some small degree of privacy. I had one large pocket handkerchief—it was meant for a young sheet—on my bed, which was filled with good, sweet, fresh hay, and plenty of the azure coverings, so short and narrow, that, when once we had lain down, it behooved us to remain perfectly still until morning, as the leased movement disarranged the bed furniture, and ensured us a shivering night. On the other side of the partition, against which our bedstead was built, stood the cooking stove, in which they burnt nothing but pitch-pine wood. As the room was not lined, and the boards very loosely put together, the soot sifted through in large quantities, and covered us from head to foot, and though I bathed so often that my hands were dreadfully chapped, and bled profusely from having them so much in the water, yet, in spite of my efforts, I looked like a chimney sweep, masquerading in women's clothes. As it was very cold at this time, the damp ground upon which we were living gave me a severe cough, and I suffered so much from chillness that at last I betook myself to rob Roy Shaw's and India Rubber's, and for the rest of the time walked about, a mere bundle of gum elastic and scotch plaid. My first move in the morning was to go out and sit upon an old travelling wagon, which stood in front of my room, in order, like an old beggar woman, to gather a little warmth from the sun. Mrs. Blank said, the Bostonians were horror-stricken because the poor Irish, who had never known any other mode of living, had no floors in their cabins, and were getting up all sorts of Howard benevolent societies to supply unfortunate pad with what is to him an unwished-for luxury. She thought that they would be much better employed in organizing associations for ameliorating the condition of those wretched women in California who were so mad as to leave their comfortable homes in the mines to go a-pleasuring in the valleys. My poor husband suffered even more than I did, for though he had a nominal share in my luxurious bed with its accompanying pocket handkerchief, yet, as Mrs. Blank took it into her head to pay me a visit, he was obliged to resign it to her and betake himself to the bar-room, and as every bunk and all the blankets were engaged, he was compelled to lie on the bar-floor—thank heaven there was a civilized floor there of real boards, with his boots for a pillow—but I am sure you must be tired of this long letter, for I am, and I reserve the rest of my adventures in the American Valley until another time. End of LETTER XXI. Recorded by Rachel Ellen, near Yosemite, California, August 7th, 2008.