In the morning we found, to our surprise, that we had been sleeping in the middle of the road, and within a few yards of us was a fine spring of water. Yesterday morning we reached Weaver’s Creek, and, after prospecting some hours, located ourselves on the spot where we now are at work, with some good prospect of success. Just below us is a Georgia miner, who showed me to-day nine pounds of gold he made last week with the assistance of two hired men. The mountains here are very precipitous and abrupt, hanging over our heads in wild grandeur. The creek is only accessible through wild ravines and over steep mountains. Owing to their great depth, and their being shut up on all sides by mountains so lofty that the sun rises two hours later, and sets two hours earlier than upon the plains, the heat is most intense. We have spent our first day in making preparations for our work. W. is now putting up a brush arbor, to guard us more effectually against the heat of the sun. Beneath the same large and wide-spreading tree are two other companies of miners. In one of these companies is a Missourian, shivering beneath the hot sun with a violent attack of fever and ague. For several days I have remonstrated with him against going into the cold water when heated, and standing there while washing out the gold. To-day he became much heated, and in this state repeated the experiment, and in ten minutes was seen creeping into his blankets. In a little time he sent for me. His look was very wild and wandering as I went to his side, and he said, looking up shivering into the tree above him, “Woods, if you don’t remove this tree, my fever never will break.”
Weaver’s Creek, Aug. 21st. Our mining company has been to-day increased, two others having joined us, making our number five. One of these has been engaged in walling in a spring where we obtain our drinking-water—another is making a cradle. The others have been employed in removing the stones and top soil, and carrying the auriferous dirt on hand-barrows, made of hides, down to the edge of the water, ready to be washed. From every indication, we have “struck a rich lead.” We find much gold on the rocks: on one I counted twenty-five scales.
Aug. 22d. We have finished our cradle, and washed a little dirt this forenoon, which yielded us about $10 in all. Our hopes are bright for the morrow.
Aug. 23d. How is “the gold become dim!” After all our preparations and hopes, our toil early and late, toil of the most laborious kind, digging down in the channel of the river till the water was up to our knees, giving ourselves barely time to eat, we have made but $4 each. We sat down upon the rocks, and looked at the small ridge of gold in the pan, and then at each other. One fell to swearing, another to laughing; I tried to say some encouraging things. Our way indeed is dark, and great are our difficulties, and oft-repeated our failures, and we experience the bitterness of the “hope deferred which maketh the heart sick,” but our motto must be press on. The motives which induced us to come here were good—our object is good—then, trusting in God’s merciful providence, let us persevere.
One young man near us has just died. He was without companion or friend—alone in his tent. Not even his name could be discovered. We buried him, tied down his tent, leaving his effects within. Thus is a home made doubly desolate. Years will pass, and that loved son, or brother, or husband still be expected, and the question still repeated, Why don’t he come? Right below me, upon a root of our wide-spreading oak, is seated an old man of three-score and ten years. He left a wife and seven children at home, whose memory he cherishes with a kind of devotion unheard of before. He says when he is home-sick he can not cry, but it makes him sick at his stomach. He is an industrious old man, but has not made enough to buy his provisions, and we have given him a helping hand. Is it surprising that many fly to gambling, and more to drink, to drown their disappointments? To-day I have weighed my little store of gold, after paying all expenses, and find it amounts, after over six weeks of hard labor, to $35.
Aug. 25th. Yesterday I returned to Salmon Falls, and am again encamped beneath the old oak upon the hill, Mr. C. and his friend being with me. They have slung their hammocks up among the branches, where they sleep comfortably, protected from the ants and vermin. My bed is, as usual, upon the ground, where even my night-bag does not guard me from the annoying attacks of the ants and lizards. Last night, after I had fallen asleep, my companions were aroused by hearing a ciote barking near us, and soon they saw him come and smell of my hands and face, seeming to doubt whether he could take a bite without being detected.
A company of nineteen have just commenced damming the river at the head of an island above the falls, nearly a mile in length, by which they expect to lay bare the channel, on one side, the whole length of the island. The proceedings of a meeting of the company to-day, with reference to my admission, were truly Californian. It was first resolved that I should be admitted, and then, as they had been at work two days, that I should furnish the company five bottles of brandy as the condition of my membership. The brandy was bought and drank, and then a committee waited upon me to notify me that I was a member, and that the trader had furnished them brandy to the amount of $10 on my account. As they knew that there was no other way by which they could obtain a “treat” from me, it was bought and drank before I was informed of the transaction.
On my way from Weaver’s Creek yesterday, I made the acquaintance of an intelligent gentleman from Washington City, who had held there a profitable office under government, and had left a family behind him. He came hoping to better a good condition. A few days labor in the mines was sufficient to convince him that it would have been better to “let well enough alone.” His is not a solitary case. The mines are full of such. The wonderful instances of success which those at home are made to believe are common, are about in the proportion of one to a thousand. Of the nine hundred and ninety-nine cases of failure, or at least of limited success, those at a distance know nothing—nothing of the privations and discouragements, trials, dangers, and deaths.
Aug. 26th. On my way to the place for preaching to-day, I stepped into a hornet’s nest, and was badly stung on my hand. These hornets, called “yellow jackets,” live around and in our tents, and share our provisions. I have had twenty of them on my plate at once. My hand was much swollen, and I feared I should be unable to fulfill my engagement with the company by preaching to them. The kindness of the wife of one of the miners, who brought a bottle of hartshorn from the tent, and bathed my hand with it, soon relieved me. Our church was “God’s first temple.” My audience were seated upon the grass on the river bank, beneath a cluster of pine trees. There they were, from all the states—from Europe, from Africa, from Oceanica. Such hours of worship on God’s holy day, spent with my mining companions, or with some beloved Christian brother who remained “steadfast, unmoveable” in his integrity amid the corrupting vices of the mines, will never be forgotten. When we could not walk to the house of God in company, we sometimes walked upon the mountains, and there together sang the songs of Zion, and prayed to the Father ever merciful and good in a strange land. I take pleasure in recalling to my mind such a noble-hearted Christian, who had devoted one fourth of all his anticipated earnings in California to religious charities. It was my pleasure afterward, when in San Francisco, to send him, through the Secretary of the American Bible Society, a quantity of Bibles, hymn-books, and sermons, his purpose being to form a Bible class among the miners. He wished them to be sent as early as possible, as “he hoped,” he said, “to get possession of the ground, and thus keep out the gambling table and the brandy bottle.”