Robinson Crusoe could have felt no greater pride and exultation when he drew his first rude crockery from the expiring embers. I now knew that nothing was too hard for me—frying pork, that had once seemed the summit of attainable excellence, no longer affected my imagination—the mysteries of beef and venison, of which we had at this time a satiety, became palpable and commonplace, and I found, like Newton, the circle of scientific discovery continually widen as I advanced.
My next achievement surpassed all that had preceded it. For several days I had been unusually silent and abstracted. My companions attributed this change to a constitutional melancholy with which I am at times afflicted, but it was really owing to the pains of travail in which my genius now laboured. It was on the eventful morning of the 13th of December, that I first took from the top of the stove, where they had reposed all night under a polished cheesebox, a tin pan of undeniable baked beans, the classic time-honoured dish of old New England. Such a thing had never before been known in the diggings, where indeed stewed beans—procul procul à nobis—were plenty with their pale watery complexions, but baked beans never, with their rich brown, almost golden, hue. My triumph was complete. Oldbuck and the doctor, between whom and ourselves there had long existed a kind of rivalry, began to cavil and detract, but were convinced and silenced at the first mouthful.
After this I went no farther. Amazed and almost terrified by the boldness of my conceptions, I felt how impossible it was ever again to equal them. I rested my claims upon this single effort, with the same calm assurance with which Columbus rested on his discovery of America—to surpass either, one must needs "find out new heavens, new earth."
Having eaten our breakfast of savoury fritters, or less pleasing ship-biscuit, molasses, and fried pork, and thoroughly warmed our inner man with a pint of coffee, black as night, we sallied forth to our work, leaving our tent and all its contents in perfect security, even if we should be gone for weeks. In no country in the world were life and property ever more secure than at that time in the mines of California. We had now moved someway down the river, and were at work among huge toppling rocks, where in the intervening crevices we found a scanty proportion of black vegetable mould that, according to the prevailing theory, should have contained no gold, but actually paid sometimes as much as thirty cents to the bucket. In fact I never saw any description of earth in California that did not, in some situation or other, afford the miner a very fair return.
Our labour was by no means hard for one in health, and if our success had equalled our expectations, would have been in the highest degree agreeable. But continued disappointment disposed us to regard everything in the least favourable light. We were glad when it was noon, and still more pleased when the sun, "wheeling his broad disc" behind the opposing hills, warned us to bring our day's labour to a close. The large pan beneath the rocker was usually by this time half full of black sand and gravel, the successive accumulations of our afternoon's washings. To wash or float out these baser substances, leaving the gold nearly unmixed in the pan, was a long and tedious process, with the mysteries of which, however, I suppose the reader is already sufficiently familiar. While one is thus occupied, the other, first removing the cradle from the edge of the river to a place of greater security, hurries home to make the necessary preparations for supper, followed in due time by his companion, whose walk, heavy and slow, or erect and springing, affords a very fair index of the success they have met with. Arrived at home, the pan is placed a few minutes over the fire to dry the small quantity of black sand still remaining, which is then blown out by the breath, leaving nothing but the pure bright yellow. The pan is now passed from one to another, that each may express his opinion of its value.
"Humph," says the first, scanning the gold curiously out of one corner of his eye, as a hen takes the dimensions of a worm or a grasshopper, "is that all? I thought we should have had at least an ounce apiece. If our hole is agoing to retort out at that rate, it's high time to be looking about for something else; but if I know where to go, I hope to be swowed."
"Here," cries another, "let me have a squint at it;" and after a careful examination, "Well, I don know; that ain't so bad; there's hard on to forty dollars, and we should ha' thought that pretty good day's wages in the States."
But it is astonishing what a glow a little gleam of success throws over the whole party—their stoop disappears—they have actually grown an inch taller; while every one has some merry quip fit for the occasion. They are unwilling to let the gold out of their hands—they slide it back and forth across the pan, making it assume every grotesque and pleasing variety of form. Hardly any sight can be more delightfully suggestive—gold coin is nothing to it, dull heavy slave that it is! If I were required to name those hours when I have enjoyed the greatest happiness, next to that arising from inward and inexplicable sources, I should fix upon such an evening in the mines, when each one has a hundred dollars for his day's labour. If there is anything better, it is when he has two hundred, with the added hope of getting as much more to-morrow.
In our particular instance a much smaller amount was sufficient to produce a general hilarity. When each had guessed its weight, it was slid carefully into the scales, thence transferred to sundry vials or tin boxes, and the amount duly registered in a book kept for the purpose. By this time supper was ready; we drew our kegs and boxes up to the table, and fell to work on the fried beef or venison with hearty good will. This was by far the pleasantest meal of the day; we lingered over our coffee, and dwelt with prolonged relish on every mouthful, ere we reluctantly dismissed it down our expectant throats; and thought how much we should enjoy the surprise, if some of our friends at home could suddenly pop in upon us.
After supper our pipes were lighted—we stretched ourselves on our beds, and conversed at intervals of the day's work, of what we should do next summer, and of going home. Number Four, whose spirits never flagged, hummed some old-time airs, or breathed them through that simple and classic instrument styled the harmonicon. It was pleasant in stormy weather to lie and listen to the rain pattering on the well-stretched canvass, and watch the sides of the tent flapping and bellying like sails at sea; while occasionally, in the pauses of the tempest, we caught brief snatches of the doctor's melancholy sounding strange and unearthly like the wail of a departing spirit. We could hear the wind apparently coming for miles up the river. A short lull would be succeeded by a faint, almost inaudible murmur like the distant tramp of an army—it came nearer and louder—now it had reached the village—we heard it hurtling through the trees at the foot of our hill, and the same moment it rushed by with headlong speed, holding us breathless with excitement, and rolled away up the valley.