I have been invited to dine at the best-built log cabin on the river. It is situated on the hill of which I have just been writing, and is owned by five or six intelligent, hard-working, sturdy young men. Of course it has no floor, but it boasts a perfect marvel of a fireplace. They never pretend to split the wood for it, but merely fall a giant fir-tree, strip it of its branches, and cut it into pieces the length of the aforesaid wonder. This cabin is lighted in a manner truly ingenious. Three feet in length of a log on one side of the room is removed and glass jars inserted in its place, the space around the necks of said jars being filled in with clay. This novel idea is really an excellent substitute for window-glass. You will perhaps wonder where they procure enough of the material for such a purpose. They are brought here in enormous quantities, containing brandied fruits, for there is no possible luxury connected with drinking, which is procurable in California, that cannot be found in the mines, and the very men who fancy it a piece of wicked extravagance to buy bread, because they can save a few dimes by making it themselves, are often those who think nothing of spending from fifteen to twenty dollars a night in the bar-rooms. There is at this moment a perfect Pelion-upon-Ossa-like pile of beautiful glass jars, porter, ale, champagne, and claret bottles, lying in front of my window. The latter are a very convenient article for the manufacture of the most enchantingly primitive lanterns. Any one in want of a utensil of this kind has but to step to his cabin-door, take up a claret or champagne bottle, knock off the bottom, and dropping into the neck thereof, through the opening thus made, a candle, to have a most excellent lantern. And the beauty of it is, that, every time you wish to use such a thing, you can have a new one.
But to return to my description of the cabin. It consists of one very large room, in the back part of which are neatly stored several hundred sacks of flour, a large quantity of potatoes, sundry kegs of butter, and plenty of hams and mackerel. The furniture consists of substantial wooden stools, and in these I observed that our friends followed the fashion, no two of them being made alike. Some stood proudly forth in all the grandeur of four legs, others affected the classic grace of the ancient tripod, while a few shrank bashfully into corners on one stubbed stump. Some round, some square, and some triangular in form. Several were so high that, when enthroned upon them, the ends of my toes just touched the ground, and others were so low that, on rising, I carried away a large portion of the soil upon my unfortunate skirts. Their bunks, as they call them, were arranged in two rows along one side of the cabin, each neatly covered with a dark-blue or red blanket. A handsome oilcloth was spread upon the table, and the service consisted of tin plates, a pretty set of stone-china cups and saucers, and some good knives and forks, which looked almost as bright as if they had just come from the cutler's. For dinner we had boiled beef and ham, broiled mackerel, potatoes, splendid new bread made by one of the gentlemen of the house, coffee, milk (Mr. B. has bought a cow, and now and then we get a wee drop of milk), and the most delicious Indian meal, parched, that I ever tasted. I have been very particular in describing this cabin, for it is the best-built and by far the best-appointed one upon the river.
I have said nothing about candlesticks as yet. I must confess that in them the spice of life is carried almost too far. One gets satiated with their wonderful variety. I will mention but two or three of these makeshifts. Bottles, without the bottoms knocked off, are general favorites. Many, however, exhibit an insane admiration for match-boxes, which, considering that they will keep falling all the time, and leaving the entire house in darkness, and scattering spermaceti in every direction, is rather an inconvenient taste. Some fancy blocks of wood with an ornamental balustrade of three nails, and I have seen praiseworthy candles making desperate efforts to stand straight in tumblers! Many of our friends, with a beautiful and sublime faith in spermaceti and good luck, eschew everything of the kind, and you will often find their tables picturesquely covered with splashes of the former article, elegantly ornamented with little strips of black wick.
The sad forebodings mentioned in a former letter have come to pass. For some weeks, with the exception of two or three families, every one upon the river has been out of butter, onions, and potatoes. Our kind friends upon the hill, who have a little remaining, sent me a few pounds of the former the other day. Ham, mackerel, and bread, with occasionally a treat of the precious butter, have been literally our only food for a long time. The rancheros have not driven in any beef for several weeks, and although it is so pleasant on the bars, the cold on the mountains still continues so intense that the trail remained impassable to mules.
The weather here for the past five weeks has been like the Indian summer at home. Nearly every day I take a walk up onto the hill back of our cabin. Nobody lives there, it is so very steep. I have a cozy little seat in the fragrant bosom of some evergreen shrubs, where often I remain for hours. It is almost like death to mount to my favorite spot, the path is so steep and stony; but it is new life, when I arrive there, to sit in the shadow of the pines and listen to the plaintive wail of the wind as it surges through their musical leaves, and to gaze down upon the tented Bar lying in somber gloom (for as yet the sun does not shine upon it) and the foam-flaked river, and around at the awful mountain splashed here and there with broad patches of snow, or reverently upward into the stainless blue of our unmatchable sky.
This letter is much longer than I thought it would be when I commenced it, and I believe that I have been as minutely particular as even you can desire. I have mentioned everything that has happened since I last wrote. Oh! I was very near forgetting a present of two ring-doves (alas! they had been shot) and a blue jay which I received yesterday. We had them roasted for dinner last evening. The former were very beautiful, approaching in hue more nearly to a French gray than what is generally called a dun color, with a perfect ring of ivory encircling each pretty neck. The blue jay was exactly like its namesake in the States.
Good by, my dear M., and remember that the same sky, though not quite so beautiful a portion of it, which smiles upon me in sunny California bends lovingly over you in cold, dreary, but, in spite of its harsh airs, beloved New England.
