All mining disputes were submitted to these courts, and whatever might be the decision given, that was considered the law, which saved all trouble of appeal. The following incident will convey some idea of law in the diggings at this time.
Two Spaniards, who had amassed a large quantity of gold dust by successful digging, quarrelled over the possession of an old mule that was scarcely worth her keep, and applied to the alcalde or magistrate to
settle the dispute. Before a word was said, however, each “greaser� had to pay three ounces of dust for expenses of the court; and then, both speaking at once, each related his own tale in Spanish, which was a language unintelligible to the court. After this, they were informed by his Honour, through an interpreter, that they had better leave the case to the decision of a jury. To this they agreed, and having paid two ounces more in advance to the sheriff, that officer summoned a jury from the adjacent diggings. After hearing their statements, which were very contradictory, the jury retired, and returned with a verdict that the costs should be shared by the plaintiff and defendant; and as there was not evidence to show who the mule really belonged to, they were to draw straws for her!
The bill of costs amounted to twenty ounces,—the liquor bill to three ounces more. This sum the Spaniards paid, and then they went out to cut for the animal; but some other Spaniard had already settled the dispute, for whilst all were inside he had mounted the mule and rode off with it, nor did it ever, to my knowledge, turn up again. But for the comparative insignificance of the fees, this trial might have taken place, judging by the result, in our own Court of Chancery.
A few digger Indians worked occasionally in our vicinity, having discovered that gold would purchase fine clothes and rum, which was all they cared for. The outfits they procured with their dust varied according to taste. One would prefer half a-dozen shirts, and wear them all at once; another would be content with a gaudy Mexican hat and a pair of jack boots; so that their partial adoption of civilised costume only served to render the uncovered parts of their bodies ridiculously conspicuous.
The Indians of California have a tradition among them which points to the days when volcanic eruptions devastated the country, and destroyed all living things but Indians. No traces of an earlier race are to be found, however, as yet, in Upper California; nor have the Indians the faintest knowledge of pictorial signs or symbols. I am inclined, therefore, to think that the present tribes have been migratory.
It is a peculiarity of California, that although it is so rich in flowers, the wild bee is never found there, nor did I ever hear a singing-bird. Digging in the mines is suspended by general accord on the Sabbath, and that day is usually spent very quietly in camp, particularly as the more boisterous characters go to the nearest town to amuse themselves. A walk over the mountains, rifle in hand, with an eye to business in the shape of “prospecting,� is often the employment of the more sedate; and if the miner sometimes finds on a Sunday what serves him for an honest livelihood on week days, he is, mayhap, no worse, sir, than you whose thoughts, even in a church, are not always separate from the pounds shillings and pence you require for the engagements of the coming week.
During this time the work at the mines progressed steadily; and the new machinery being ready, we started it, fully confident of success.[24] Again was our engine placed under contribution for four horses’ more power than it was built for, and again did our machinery turn out a signal failure: in fact we had iron only where we should have had the hardest of steel, and in consequence, instead of our mill grinding the quartz, the quartz had the best of it and ground the mill; and as it was gold I wanted, and not iron filings, I determined for the present to abandon my third profitless speculation.
Agriculturally, architecturally, and mineralogically, I had been sported with by fate,—and the plough in the north, the steam-engine in the south, and the hotel in the middle, had each been accompanied by pecuniary loss. Yet the days I had passed had been very happy, and Philosophy said: “You have had health, and contentment, and warm friendship; and if these were purchasable, many would buy them of you for twenty times what you have lost in money!â€� To which I replied, “Very true, oh Philosophy! but had I taken my steam-engine to Russian River, and there applied its power to sawing red-woods, and had I with my plough turned up the fertile hills and valleys at Vallejo, and further, had I erected my hotel at Sonora, where it was much wanted, I might have still had the unpurchasable articles you allude to, and the money too.â€� Upon which Philosophy, seeing me thus unreasonable, retired from the contest.