The indifference of a class of the population here even to the lives of others, was illustrated by the grave-digger, who has generally to dig eight or more graves in a day, but yesterday only having three ordered, he cursed the Yankees for cheating him out of half his day’s earnings.
Last evening I walked around to about fifty of the gambling tables. A volume could not describe their splendor or their fatal attractions. The halls themselves are vast and magnificent, spread over with tables and implements for gambling. The pictures which decorate them no pen of mine shall describe. The bar-rooms are furnished with the most expensive liquors, no care or attention being spared in the compounding and coloring of them. The music is performed often by professors, and is of the best kind. The tables are sometimes graced, or disgraced, by females, who came at first masked, and who are employed to deal the cards, or who come to play on their own account. “The Bank” consists of a solid pile of silver coin, surmounted by the golden currency of as many countries as there are dupes about the table. Often a sack or two of bullion, which has cost the poor miner months of labor, is placed upon the top of all. Sufficient money to send one home independent changed owners during my short stay. A boy of ten years came to one of the tables with a few dollars. His “run of luck” was surprising, and to him bewildering. In ten minutes he was the owner of a pile of silver, with some gold. In one minute more he was without a dollar. Thinking by one turn of the cards to double his profits, he lost the whole. The instances of great good luck on the part of the players are very rare. But they sometimes occur. A lawyer of this city recently swept three tables in one evening. A young man came from the States in one of the last steamers, and was preparing to go to the mines. He borrowed ten dollars, and went to one of the faro banks. During the night and a part of the next forenoon, he had won $7000, when he made a resolution never to play more, and returned home in the next steamer. Mr. Davidson, the agent of the Rothschilds, says that some of the professed gamblers send home by him to England the average sum of $17,000 a month. Many tricks are resorted to in order to bring persons to the table. An eye-witness assures me that he has seen the president of the bank slip secretly into the hand of some one, employed for the purpose of decoying others, a quantity of coin. On receiving this, he would leave the room, but soon return, and present himself in a noisy manner at the table, and boldly “plank down” the very money he had received. In five minutes the table would be surrounded by eager players.
There are but few women yet in California. Several merchants, and others who intend to spend some years in the country, send for their families. But the situation of these ladies is not the most comfortable, owing to the want of society, and to the utter impossibility of procuring servants in the family. By the death of their husbands, the condition of the wives would be pitiable, though there seem to be enough who would persuade them to change their solitary life as soon as possible. A lady now in this city, soon after her arrival here lost her husband. Before he had been dead a week, she received three proposals of marriage.
The price of labor is yet very high, though not as high as it was in the spring. Good carpenters and masons command their $8 a day. The citizens frequently send their clothes to the Sandwich and Society Islands, and even to Valparaiso, and other places on the coast, to be washed, to avoid the great expense for washing here. All kinds of goods are lower than they were a few months since. Coal, which was $100, is now $9 a ton. Vegetables have fallen from $1 to 25 cts. a lb. Eggs maintain their high price, selling at $20 a dozen.
After much inquiry, we have determined to go, for our next mining season, to the southern mines. We are led to this determination chiefly on account of the better health enjoyed there.
CHAPTER IV.
SOUTHERN MINES.
Having made our preparations, and engaged passage on board a schooner for Stockton, on the 19th day of October we started. Our company was made up chiefly of young gentlemen from Boston. Our sail up the bays and the San Joaquin River was accomplished in six days. We furnished our own provisions, which, owing to the length of our journey, proved insufficient. Notwithstanding the very heavy dews, we were compelled to sleep on deck. In consequence, one of our company took so severe a cold that he returned to San Francisco from Stockton, abandoning mining; while another, a young man from Uxbridge—alas! will disregard all the earnest advice of his friends to return, and will go on, a doomed man—will reach the mines, and we shall there leave him in his grave. Poor C., may his sad story be a warning to multitudes of young men, having good business and good prospects at home, to remain there, contented with small, but steady and sure gains! Sad, sad was his fate to be, for we were soon to bury him, in sight, and within a few yards of those rich deposits, the exaggerated accounts of which are now luring him, and will lure so many others to their ruin! Poor friend! even the hardened muleteers, having charge of our provisions, pity his sorrows, and walk themselves, that they may supply a mule for his faltering and fainting steps. All see death in his haggard countenance and sunken eyes, yet he sees it not. Never shall I forget my interview with him, while I walked by the mule on which he was riding, a few days only before his death. He was telling me of the bright and happy future before him. Taking from his vest pocket a daguerreotype, he placed it in my hands, requesting me to open it. What simplicity, what truth were portrayed in that lovely countenance! Well might he think his future a happy one. I could hardly conceal from him my emotion as I returned his priceless treasure, and thought, never will you take to your bosom the loving and the loved! In a few days I communicated to his friends the intelligence of his death.
Stockton, Oct. 25th. An escape so remarkable occurred to-day that it should not be omitted. Calling at the store of Paige & Webster to purchase provisions, I stood conversing with the clerk, the bag containing the supplies lying at my feet. Thinking the string was loose, I stooped over to examine it. At that very moment there was the sharp crack of a pistol in the store adjoining, and separated only by a cloth partition. On rising hastily, I perceived that the bullet had passed through the tent directly in range of my body. Without moving, I took the measurement, and found that, had I not moved the very second I did, the ball must have gone directly through my heart. It passed within an inch or two of my spine. A little crowd were instantly upon the spot, wondering at this almost miraculous escape.
Our journey from Stockton to Marepoosa, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, was accomplished between Oct. 27th and Nov. 15th. We took our own provisions and cooking utensils with us, there being few eating tents on the way. After three days’ travel the rainy season set in, and we found it necessary to pitch our tents—sometimes doing this in the mud, spreading down our blankets upon the wet and cold ground, there to remain for two or three days. After we had crossed the plain of the San Joaquin and entered among the mountains, we had fine scenery and beautiful sunsets. Our guide was endeavoring to take us by a new track to the mines, and on our march, Nov. 2d, we were lost among the mountains. After a consultation, the guide and muleteers concluded to cross a high mountain, without a path and very steep. In ascending, two of the mules missed their footing, rolling over and over, down the precipitous sides of the hill, till arrested uninjured by some rock or stump. By the time we had reached the summit of the mountain, and passed across an extent of table-land to an abrupt bluff, at the foot of which was to be seen the beautiful Tuolumne, night had crept upon us. With the night came torrents of rain, driving through our thin canvas roof in a shower of large drops. During the night I was conscious of a sensation of coldness which had completely benumbed me. When sufficiently awake to ascertain the cause, I found that, owing to the unevenness of the ground, I had slid down till my feet were immersed in a cold bath outside the tent. All the next day we kept our tent, amusing ourselves by reading, sewing, and conversing. The morning after, the clouds had disappeared, and the sun rose in splendor. The birds sang their most enlivening songs. It was like our May at home. On walking out of our tents, we perceived the huge foot-prints of the grisly bear at just twenty-six paces distant, and there were the holes where he had scratched up the ground in pursuit of the ants and bugs, which he devours with avidity. The centipedes and tarantulas occasioned us no little apprehension and uneasiness. After the rain commenced, we frequently found them between and under our blankets.
On one of the mornings of our march, my feet being lame, I started in advance of the train, that I might take time to rest, not expecting to see the party again till they overtook me at the end of the day’s march. When I left, all preparations for a start had been made, and the muleteers had gone out for their mules. Two of them, however, were missing, and so much of the day was spent before they were found, that the guide concluded to remain in camp till the next morning. Upon reaching the spring where I supposed we were to encamp, and having quenched my thirst, hungry and weary, I went to a large and shady tree a short distance from the path, and sat down to await my companions. For some time I occupied my mind with reading the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” which I had in my pocket. Soon, however, Bunyan’s dream began to mingle with my own, and I fell into a long, deep sleep. When I awoke, bewildered and confused, it was near night, and nowhere were my companions to be seen. Had they passed me during the day, and gone on to the next encampment, or had some accident delayed them, were becoming anxious questions to me. I perceived, by new tracks, that several trains had passed while I was asleep. Was mine one of them? I determined—why, I hardly know—to retrace my morning steps. But soon a new source of anxiety arose. My course in the morning had been across a plain at the foot of the mountains, till at length it brought me up among them. As I descended the last steeps of these, and saw the plain extended out below me, far in the distance, and very far from the trail I had come, I saw a mule-train which I thought must be mine, and concluded that I had been all this time wandering out of my way. Fixing their direction in my mind before descending upon the plain, and while the sun was setting, I struck across, leaving my path, and hoping to intersect theirs by the time they should come into camp. If I could not effect this, I must spend the night without food, or water, or blankets, with also the prospect of being lost among the mountains. This, in my situation, would be attended with much inconvenience and some danger. Several have been lost in this manner, and never seen again. At length I succeeded in reaching the train, and found it was not mine; but I had the satisfaction of hearing from my companions, and that they were still at their last night’s camp. At about ten o’clock I reached our encampment. Tired and hungry as I was, I stood for some time struck with the scene before me. In addition to the usual camp-fires, giving to every thing a wild, gipsy-like air, my friends had cut down a large tree, and, piling up all the branches and a quantity of dry fuel, had made a grand bonfire. The whole country about was lighted up. Hastening to the camp, I first snatched up the coffee-pot, and, finding it half full, began to drink heartily of the contents, too thirsty to judge of its quality. When I joined the cheerful party around the blazing fire, I was appealed to to decide a question which they had been and still were eagerly discussing. The subject was one which, being brought up under our circumstances, and at such a distance from home, was calculated to awaken a lively interest. It was respecting the comparative merits of the Boston Common and the New York Battery, and was agitated by young miners from those cities.