[CHAPTER XXI.]
Tuesday, June 10. Considerable rain fell during the morning. The thermometer thus far has averaged ten to twenty degrees lower at noon than during the same time last year. We are at times anxious about our summer's work, as the river has fallen very little.
Thursday, 12. Took a long tramp in pursuit of game, got lost, and walked about twelve miles. Our table expenses at present are about fifty cents apiece a day.
Wednesday, 25. Stopped the water at the head of our race on Saturday, and Monday began again the work which the rain interrupted two months ago.
Sunday afternoon, a quail led her young brood just before our door. We had been long desirous to secure some of these birds, in hopes of taming them; but though we had spent part of every day for weeks in rambling over the country, and had seen innumerable flocks, they had always eluded our pursuit. Now that our hunting days were over, and we had given up all hopes of accomplishing our object, it was a very agreeable surprise to see our prey thus throw itself into our hands. We made a sudden and impetuous sweep, and in a moment caught eight of these pretty creatures, no bigger than an English walnut, and covered with the same soft down that renders the chickens of our barnyards so engaging. We carried them into the tent, and having secured them in a small raisin box, I set about constructing what Reaumer calls an artificial mother, to keep them warm in the cold nights. This was nothing more than a low shed with a sloping roof of flannel—an old shirt supplied the material—and here I doubted not my young family would soon find themselves at home. But hardly had I got into bed when a faint peep from the raisin box, followed by another and another till the whole brood were in full chorus, called me to their side. There was no resisting that plaintive importunity; I put my hand into the box, like a scooching father-long-legs, and presently the tender nurselings crept under this warm shelter. I felt their little checkerberry hearts beating against my fingers, while they quietly composed themselves to sleep. My heart warmed to them amazingly on their giving me this proof of confidence, and I began to think seriously of sitting up all night, rather than disturb their slumbers; but fearful lest I should fall into a drowse, and perhaps squeeze them harder than might be convenient, I put them all safely back under the artificial mother, and left them with anxious concern.
The next morning they all lay apparently dead in the bottom of the box, but by warming them in our hands with our hot breath, we recovered all but one, and if we had known how to feed them, we should undoubtedly have succeeded in preserving their lives. We tried everything we could think of, and were almost in despair, when Jimmy, one of our company, who had been gamekeeper to an English nobleman, told us that they fed them on "hants' heggs" in his country. "Hants'" nests were plenty in our neighbourhood; we lost no time in digging one open, and soon presented our young starvelings with abundance of "heggs." They eat a few, but their strength was too far gone to be restored, and the second morning not one was left alive.
Our canal on which we were now working had been in great part excavated through a ledge of the hardest granite—it varied from twelve to twenty feet in width, and from five to ten in depth.—Half of these dimensions would have been sufficient if its course had been even moderately straight; but the frequent and sudden curves checked too much the rapidity of the current. As a little labor here would save a great deal on the dam, we bent our backs to the work with less reluctance, though nothing that we had yet done in California could be compared to it for a moment. If there is any thing in this world deserving the contempt of a rational being, it is a big stone. A pig is certainly as obstinate, but then he can be wheedled into going the way you wish. A fool is perhaps as stupid, but he can be beaten into reason. But a stone, especially if large enough to fancy itself a rock, is worse than a tortoise. It draws itself up into its shell deaf to all argument or entreaty, and insensible to blows. If we had only had Amphion's lyre; but we had not even a fiddle, only crowbars and gunpowder, and our poor fingers. And there was no wind to disturb the stagnant air—the sun streamed down into our granite prison till it became as hot as a Sandwich Island oven.
But at length the work was completed—the digging, the blasting, the rolling of stones, and piling them up into a firm smooth wall, were all over—the dike at the mouth of the canal was removed—the parched and thirsty channel seemed to swallow eagerly the inrushing river, and we entered upon the far more agreeable task of repairing the dam. A large flatboat had been already built by a ship carpenter belonging to our company, and the various operations of the preceding year were soon under full headway.