During the last weeks of our labors, we hired many Americans, and more than fifty Mexicans. The heavy tax upon foreigners has driven them to seek employment from companies. They may be hired at $4 and $6 a day. These Mexicans, who speak imperfect Spanish, are generally very indolent, and must be closely watched. Many times in the day, whatever may be the business, they will stop, take out a small, square piece of white paper, and putting upon it a small pinch of loose tobacco, roll it into a cigarito, and lighting it with a piece of punk or a match, smoke with apparent relish. The women are as fond of their cigaritos as the men.
A few nights before I left the mines, I accepted an invitation from “Red” to accompany him on a night fishing expedition. He carried in his hand a long and peculiarly pointed spear, with a spring barb, which opened as it entered the flesh of the fish, and prevented his escape. Several others bore torches made of light wood, which, while they dazzled the fish, showed the spear-man where to strike. After two hours’ fishing on the banks of the river, we returned, rewarded for our toil with several large salmon.
A remarkable instance of an attack made by a bear upon the inmates of a tent occurred lately near us. He was no doubt attracted by the smell of the fresh meat which was being cooked. Infuriated by the resistance which he met, he made a most violent attack upon his assailants, killing two men and one woman, who was cooking. One of the men and the bear lay dead side by side.
A bird of very large size has frequently flown over us, soaring very high in the air, which we have supposed was the California eagle; but one, coming within the range of the rifle, was shot, and fell at our feet upon the bar. It proves to be a species of the vulture, and measures, between the tips of its wings, eight feet and eleven inches. The quill which I now have is of great size.
There was upon the bar a case of delirium tremens, that most fearful display of the Divine displeasure against intemperance. The young man was from England—had been an officer in the British army. Soon after he came to the mines, he gave himself up to intemperate habits. He was suddenly attacked in the night, imagining himself pursued by horrible fiends, which came to torture him. At midnight he came rushing into my tent, and almost knocked me out of my hammock as he crept under it, to conceal himself from his enemies. He would then dart through the side of my arbor, densely interwoven with brush and boughs, and into a tent near by, where he narrowly escaped being shot as a robber. In the day he would sit near the bank of the river, and converse by the hour with imaginary persons on the hill opposite. He carried on a curious courtship with a woman who was dancing over the river, surrounded by her fifty children. He requested me to marry him to this woman of his imagination; and then, soon after, came in trembling, and told me that the husband was alive, and in his jealous rage was seeking to kill him.
There was much sickness upon the bar during the latter part of the season. Much of this was the result of the fearful exposures to which we were subject. The sickness at length assumed a malignant and dangerous form. It commenced in a violent attack of diarrhœa, running into symptoms resembling the cholera, which was then fatally prevalent in the cities of California. The first person attacked was a vigorous and strong German sailor. Nothing could be learned of him or his friends—even his name was unknown to us. We buried him deep in the sand, on the banks of the Tuolumne; and while the burial services were being performed, a crowd—not, however, of our own members—surrounded the gambling-table on the bar. At this time there were three or four gambling companies with us, called into life by the short-lived success of our mining operations.
Poor Charlie! would it lessen the loneliness of your last resting-place to know that you “sleep your last sleep” by the side of the gifted and noble-hearted friend who watched over you night and day in your sickness, and who thus contracted his own death malady? Alas! how sad and overpowering are my thoughts, as I stand, for the last time before leaving for my own far-distant home, by the grave of Franklin H. Ridout, of Annapolis, Maryland! Soon after the death of Charlie, he was prostrated by a most violent attack of the same disease. During his short sickness, every possible attention and assistance was rendered him by a few devoted friends; but how often he must have felt the want of the attentions of his own happy home—the home of piety and refinement! After he had received from his physician the intelligence that there was no hope in his case—intelligence to which he listened with Christian resignation—he sent for me. It was the 21st of October, and so warm and genial was the weather that the dying man was outside his tent, lying beneath its shade. That conversation, and others which followed, I shall never forget. I was the learner, and he the teacher. His quiet Christian resignment to the will of the Supreme Being, while it was very affecting, was also consoling to our feelings. But one thing he seemed to wish different. “If I might die at home,” he said, “it would be so sweet!” The last sentence he spoke contained the dear and sacred name “mother!” His last thought was of her. A short time before his death, the sacrament of the holy communion was administered to him, at which a large number of persons were present. A meeting of the company was called in the evening, and the following resolutions were passed:
Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to take from among us a beloved friend and companion, therefore,
Resolved, 1st. That by the death of Franklin H. Ridout we have lost one whom we all esteemed most highly for his many virtues.
Resolved, 2d. That we sincerely sympathize with his afflicted mother and relatives in this sad bereavement.