According to our calculations, it now rained about one-third of the time, though Colonel Oldbuck insisted that the proportion was at least one-half. The river, like all mountain streams, generally rose with great rapidity, and we were not always prepared for these sudden freshets. Going early one morning, after a gentle rain that had fallen interruptedly for several days, to look after our rocker, I found the spot where we had left it, deep under water, while the river, now swollen to a frightful extent, was fretting itself furiously against the jutting rocks that formed its banks. Hundreds of rockers were swept away, and one man below the island took out forty that had found a harbour in an eddy near which he was at work. Our own, though of iron, was forced to the surface by the violence of the current, and lodged against a snag not far below; but the unconscionable wreckers that saved it charged us an ounce for salvage.
As the waters subsided, the impatient miners hastened to resume their operations on the island from which they had been several days excluded. The fierce flood that had swept over it had produced a wonderful change in its surface, and in some cases almost obliterated the ancient landmarks; so that the different claimants were not a little perplexed to settle the boundaries of this disputed territory. Some also maintained that a fresh deposit of gold had been distributed over the bar; and a single incident that produced a great excitement, seemed for a time to favour this supposition. A young fellow, at work on the upper end of the island, took out several hundred dollars, in a few buckets full of earth, from a part of his claim that he swore positively was entirely bare before the freshet. The gold, however, was much coarser than the minute scales universally characteristic of those diggings, so that the curious were for some time at a loss to account for its mysterious appearance. It was at length recollected that a man at work the preceding summer, on a dam just above the island, had lost a purse containing five hundred dollars; and the conclusion was irresistible that this was the treasure so curiously brought to light. The lucky finder celebrated his good fortune by having a complete "blow out," or jollification, and went roystering about at the head of a party of good fellows, till he had not a particle of his luck remaining.
Our diggings on the bank were now nearly exhausted. We had spent nearly half the working days of the last two months in prospecting—O word of fear!—had dived into the ravines—run up and down the river—tried the bank to-day, and the island to-morrow—and, in fact, fairly reduced ourselves to the verge of desperation. To confess the truth, if the reader has not discovered it beforehand, we were sadly lacking in faith, hope, energy, and perseverance, and, indeed, all those qualities that are capable of being converted into ready money. No one could work harder than we with a certainty of success, but deprive us of that, and our heads hung down like a bulrush.
It was easy enough to work in a hole already opened, but to start a new one in gravel, clay, or loam, all alike dumb, mysterious, inscrutable—to dig five or twenty feet through unsympathizing sand when it was so improbable that there was any thing there—it was really unworthy of a rational being.
But working on the bank was attended with another inconvenience arising from the difficulty of avoiding the poison-oak. This is a small shrub generally not more than a foot in height, though sometimes as tall as a man's head, with dark venomous looking leaves resembling in shape those of the oak. Its poison is of the most subtile and diffusive nature, approaching more nearly, perhaps, to that of the fabled upas than any other in the vegetable kingdom. Some, indeed, can handle it with impunity, while with others not only the merest touch but even holding it a few inches from the hands or face is followed by most painful consequences. The hands, as being most exposed, are usually the first to discover its presence. Numerous little swellings make their appearance between the fingers and on the wrist, causing an intolerable itching; and the least contact being sufficient to communicate the infection, it soon spreads to the face and other parts of the body. In a few days, with proper precaution, these symptoms commonly disappear, but are sometimes followed by others yet more unfavourable. The parts affected swell to a prodigious size, and become exquisitely painful; pustules form and break until the whole surface becomes an offensive sore, and in some cases death even has ensued. As we were both unusually sensitive to this poison, we were unwilling to expose ourselves to its influence for any thing less than eight dollars a day, and we were once more driven to the island.
This now presented a truly formidable appearance. Imagine an irregular field of about ten acres, with the stones that would rightfully belong to ten thousand acres of the stoniest pasture, collected on its surface in piles of every conceivable form and relative position. The whole had been already turned topsy-turvy, and many parts two or three times in succession yet scattered parties of miners were still at work;—our neighbours Browne and Oldbuck among them—and we heard now and then of their making fifteen or twenty dollars in a day, though the average would not have exceeded six or seven. They began, it hardly mattered where, by throwing out the stones with their hands till they reached the bottom of rotten granite, and had thus made what is called a good face for their hole; and then, scraping off a few inches of the surface, they washed it together, with the smaller stones and the trifling quantity of earth that still remained. We went to work in the same manner, and after a hard day's labour, found we had made just ten dollars.
It rained gently and at intervals all the next day and night. Wednesday morning I rose early, and stepping to the door of the tent, looked down towards the island. To my great surprise, hardly space enough remained uncovered to pitch a tent on—in twelve hours the river had risen fifteen feet—our rocker was again submerged, and this was the last we ever saw of it. I walked a short distance up the bank, and though I had been over the same ground a hundred times, I was almost bewildered by the novelty of the scene. The usually rapid river now rushed along with the speed of a mill race, and a multitudinous, deafening shout. The rocks among which we had worked, and the path where we had walked, were now all far below the surface. The waters continued to rise until the whole island was covered, but the next morning, though it was still raining, it again heaved its broad back above the waves.
In the evening we received letters from home announcing that a third brother was on his way to join us, and was, perhaps, even then in San Francisco; pleasant news, though we had so little encouragement to give him on his arrival.
Monday, Jan. 20th, we received a visit from our old friend and shipmate, Capt. Fayreweather, now on his way home. It is impossible to imagine a greater contrast than he now presented to his former self. When we sailed from N. I remembered him in a long camlet cloak, all chirping and officious good humour—not even the ignominy of being hauled up a steep plank, like a beerbarrel in a nightgown, was able to ruffle his abiding complacency. But now, his humour was dry and sarcastic, and had that peculiar tone that persons of his character are apt to assume when they wish to show that they consider themselves slighted or in any way ill-used. Between him and the smallest man in the ship there existed the same sort of antipathy as between the cat and the mouse, or the elephant and the pig. As this sentiment was instinctive on both sides, and such as often manifests itself between two such opposites, I was not a little amused at the manner in which he referred to his puny antagonist—"little Flanders," with a jerking emphasis on the first syllable. It really seemed as if I could hear the bones crack as he mumbled him in his month.
We could not help pitying the old man, and fancying—I hope it was only fancy—that he was not quite so stout and comely as he had been; we invited him to stay all night, and I gladly gave up my bed for his accommodation. As the evening advanced, he waxed more merry and genial, and some faint flashes of his wonted spirit showed what he must have been ere age and disappointment had chilled his blood; but in the morning all his fire was exhausted, or had retired inward to warm and strengthen his heart. He left us immediately after breakfast, and we soon saw him toiling up the steep hill on the other side of the village, on his way to Sacramento.