Sunday, two other parties from the Leucothea came up the river, Capt. Fayreweather's, in a flat boat they had built on board the ship, and the Vermonters in a packet.
The Vermonters pitched their tent among a large number of others in a thick grove in one corner of the town, and then commenced the arduous task of transporting thither their provisions; the imperious, headstrong Charley disputing all the while with his rebellious satellites, with most amusing pertinacity, as to the amount of labour performed by each, and the proper method of conducting the simplest operation.
Monday afternoon they started on a long journey of ninety miles up on the Yuba; and, at the same time, we set out for Mormon Island, twenty-five miles from Sacramento, with a mule wagon to transport our provisions and household stuff, for which we had to pay eight cents a pound. After passing Sutter's Fort, the road for several miles lay over an open prairie; the evening was calm, and the solitude and silence greater even than at sea. A little farther on, the surface became more undulating; fine old oaks dotted the ground at long intervals, seeming, like the stars in the sky, set all at an equal distance in a wide circle, of which we were the centre.
We encamped for the night near the American river,—the sun had long been set,—we were cold and hungry, but it was too dark to find materials for a fire, and we were compelled to go supperless to bed. We spread our tent on the ground, and muffling ourselves in our blankets, crept in between the folds, in dumb expressive silence, while our driver, equally unsocial, stretched his length, like a watch dog, under his wagon. It was a relief to hear the roar of the river that on one side seemed to furnish a wall of defence, as if it had weakened the surrounding loneliness by cutting it in halves; it was a relief even to hear the barking of the coatis as they prowled round the wagon; but I never recall that night by the American river, and think of the profoundest desolation that brooded over us, without a shudder,—a shudder of delight, as children listen to tales of ghosts and goblins.
We hailed the first dawn of day with intense satisfaction; before the sun was up our coffee-pot was singing over a crackling blaze, and a steak sizzling in the frying-pan sent forth a most savoury odour. There is an immense difference between going to bed darkling and supperless, and getting up to a hearty breakfast on a bright sunshiny morning; we were no longer the same persons, and, full of beef and coffee, felt ready to encounter any difficulty that might present itself.
We travelled all day through an open forest of oak, passing one or two houses, or ranches as they were oftener called, and meeting occasionally an empty wagon returning to Sacramento. We met also a young fellow dressed in a new calico shirt of the gayest pattern, with a bright scarf round his waist, galloping carelessly along the sweeping glades of the forest, and swinging round his head the long braided lash that forms the end of a Spanish bridle. I looked after him with envious admiration; for thinks I to myself, there is a lucky miner who has made his fortune, twenty or thirty thousand at least, and is now going home to enjoy it. But it was pleasant to think that in another year we too should be galloping over the same road, each with just such a horse and painted shirt, and with as well filled saddle-bags as he. Then how we would exult over any unlucky pedestrians we might chance to encounter!—with what self-complacent condescension we would stop to answer their absurd questions! looking down upon them, all the while, from our twofold elevation, with most delightful pity,—pitying them, so to speak, as hard as we could, and then wrapt away from their sight in a cloud of dust.
Solacing ourselves with many such "sugared suppositions," we came at night to a small roadside inn, called the Willow Spring House, and built in that place for the sake of the water which is very scarce in all that region. Several parties were already resting on the little green slope opposite the house; we joined them, and cooked our supper at their fire; while, after the fashion of Californians, we gave each other a brief account of our adventures. Some of our companions we found had come like ourselves round the Horn, and we were mutually anxious to learn the names of our respective vessels; some had come by way of the Isthmus,—and others had travelled across the plains of Mexico, or over the Rocky Mountains. They came together, at this secluded spot, for the first and last time, and parted in the morning; some going down to Sacramento, which they had not yet seen, and others up into the mountains,—while we continued our march, and in an hour arrived at Mormon Island, where we found our companions in a state of great perplexity at our long delay.
With their assistance our goods were soon unloaded at a spot hastily selected at the side of the street; we counted out eighty dollars on a stump for our driver,—hung our tent to the overhanging branch of a small oak to avoid the necessity of a pole, and piled our provisions round its trunk.
Our next door neighbour, an old man with a loud, good-humoured voice, and who kept a sort of small eating-house at the farther end of a monstrous pine that stretched from his door to ours, was cooking his breakfast at a fire built against the middle of the log. While our coffee was boiling, he began to sing the praises of some bean soup he had just concocted; and, on my expressing some doubt of its excellence, nothing would do but I must taste it. "There," said he, as I dipped my iron spoon into the shallow tin plate he had provided, "what do you say to that?" I was forced to acknowledge that it was very good indeed, and I further flattered the old man's vanity by asking for the recipe, which he gave me at once, with an infinite deal of chuckling and gesticulation, flying round all the while among his pots and kettles with twice his usual dexterity.
Having fortified ourselves with a hearty breakfast, we proceeded all together, Capt. Bill leading the way, to the island, to see the machine that had gradually climbed so high in our imaginations. Mormon Island proper is nothing but a large bar on one side of the river, converted into an island by a narrow canal dug round it for the purpose of draining that portion of the channel. The name, however, has extended itself to the village that has grown up on the neighbouring bank, and which consisted, at that time, of a single street nearly as broad as it was long,—lined on three sides with a few scattered tents and log houses, though several stores and hotels of much greater pretensions have since been added.