I had been directed to a place called Holden’s Hotel as a sleeping place. The lower floor formed the gambling saloon, in which were the Ethiopian serenaders already alluded to; the upper being converted, as I had understood, into sleeping apartments. On applying at the bar for a bed, I was requested to pay a dollar and enter my name on a slate opposite a vacant number; 80 it was. I wished to go to bed, and was directed to mount the staircase and find No. 80 for myself. On reaching the second storey, I found myself in a long and dimly lighted room of the same dimensions as that below, and round and about which were ranged about a hundred wooden stretchers, covered with canvas, and furnished each with one dark-blue blanket, and a small bag of hay to represent a pillow. It is satisfactory to me to remember, that, so far from expressing surprise, I displayed a stoicism that would have brought the blush through the vermilioned cheek of a Pawnee warrior; I wound my way through the settees, most of which were occupied, until I arrived at one on the head of which was a card bearing my number. A glance assured me that the bag of hay that rightfully belonged to me was there, but that the blanket was not. A momentary inspection further developed the fact, that on all the occupied stretchers were two or more blankets, whilst the unoccupied beds had been denuded of this covering. Having been educated as a midshipman, it is needless to say that to be in possession of three blankets, for it was cold, and an extra bag of hay, was the work of a moment; and making myself as snug as I could in No. 80, I was soon asleep, notwithstanding that the chinking of the monté-bankers, and the noise of the crowd below, and the calls for brandy-smashes, and the chorus of the serenaders, were by no means “fainter in the distance;� and no wonder, for close to No. 80 there was a chink between two planks, so wide that I could see “Bones� lolling out his tongue at the public, as he accompanied the chorus to the popular song of “Charlestown Races.�
I awoke about daylight, very chilly, and found that my blankets had disappeared. The law of reprisal had been fairly enforced, and one cannot always be wide-awake. It was a comfort to me to reflect, that he who took the blankets, took the fleas that belonged to them; and as these creatures feed about daylight, I had the best of it after all. It was a capital idea of the landlord’s, to have all the blankets of the same colour, for as every man deposited his revolver under his head before retiring for the night, it prevented all possibility of the joke becoming serious.
As I have already observed, the Spaniards enclose their wild horses in a “corral.â€� Here, closely packed, the best horse kicks himself into the best place, and keeps it. These wholesale human dormitories are also called corrals, and the principle is much the same as regards the occupant; you must kick or get kicked—and indeed for that matter the whole world is conducted on much the same principle.
CHAPTER XV.
THE GOLD MINE—THE INNOCENCE OF SONORA—SUNDAY IN SONORA—SELLING A HORSE—CARRYING WEAPONS—BOB—WE LEAVE VALLEJO—WE ARE “BOUND TO GOâ€�—THE SHADOW OF A CROW.
September 1851.
Early the next morning I proceeded on horseback with Joe Bellow and an engineer to the mine, which was situated near a mining village called Tuttle-Town. To reach this spot we had to cross a table mountain, so covered with the débris of former volcanic eruptions, that it was a perfect cinder-heap upon a large scale. The ground reverberated as we passed over concealed craters, and for two or three miles we were confined to a foot pace, as we picked our way through the rough boulders that lay half buried in the earth, like a field of winter turnips.
The Tuttletonians were not actively employed at the time of our arrival, principally from the fact that the diggings had “given out.�
The quartz vein, however, was there, and after a day’s inspection, I was satisfied that in external appearance at least it bore out the report that Joe Bellow had given of it. To the man who wants more money than he has (and few of us are free from that craving), the sight of massive veins of rock, peppered with specks of gold, is a trying spectacle.
As he sits upon a boulder on the outcrop, and extracts a piece of pure metal with the point of a knife, he is subject to a thrill which I am afraid is indicative of the sordid ideas of his nature;—when he descends the shaft, and by the aid of a candle still beholds the specks of gold, he draws a long breath, in mental contemplation of the wondrous wealth before him; then when the wealthy seam is placed at his service, on terms so easy that it appears quite thrown away, in all probability he will do as I did, swallow the bait, hook and all. The opinion of the engineer was highly satisfactory, as engineers’ opinions generally are; we therefore returned to Sonora, where I plunged at once into the subject of mining statistics. I remember now how ridiculously plain the whole matter appeared; here was the gold,—you could see it and feel it,—well, all you had to do was to get it out! Argument would have been wasted upon any thick-headed fellow who looked upon the matter in any other light. But none such existed,—all Sonora was quartz-mine-mad,—and although no machinery had as yet reached this region, shafts were being sunk, and adits cut, in every hill around the town. One mine, which extended from the rear of the principal hotel, was owned entirely by Cornish miners; these had sunk two deep shafts, and connected them by a gallery, by which means two or three hundred yards of the vein were laid bare.