From Oak Valley I went down to Slate Range with an American who was anxious I should visit his camp there. After climbing down the mountain side, we at last reached the river, which here was confined between huge masses of slate rock, turning in its course, and disappearing behind bold rocky points so abruptly, that seldom could more of the length than the breadth of the river be seen at a time.
An hour’s scrambling over the sharp-edged slate rocks on the side of the river brought us to his camp, or at least the place where he and his partners camped out, which was on the bare rocks, in a corner so over-shadowed by the steep mountain that the sun never shone upon it. It was certainly the least luxurious habitation, and in the most wild and rugged locality, I had yet seen in the mines. On a rough board which rested on two stones were a number of tin plates, pannikins, and such articles of table furniture, while a few flat stones alongside answered the purpose of chairs. Scattered about, as was usual in all miners’ camps, were quantities of empty tins of preserved meats, sardines, and oysters, empty bottles of all shapes and sizes, innumerable ham-bones, old clothes, and other rubbish. Round the blackened spot which was evidently the kitchen were pots and frying-pans, sacks of flour and beans, and other provisions, together with a variety of cans and bottles, of which no one could tell the contents without inspection; for in the mines everything is perverted from its original purpose, butter being perhaps stowed away in a tin labeled “fresh lobsters,” tea in a powder canister, and salt in a sardine-box.
There was nothing in the shape of a tent or shanty of any sort; it was not required as a shelter from the heat of the sun, as the place was in the perpetual shade of the mountain, and at night each man rolled himself up in his blankets, and made a bed of the smoothest and softest piece of rock he could find.
This part of the river was very rich, the gold being found in the soft slate rock between the layers and in the crevices.
My friend and his partners were working in a “wing dam” in front of their camp, and the river, being pushed back off one half of its bed, rushed past in a roaring torrent, white with foam. A large water-wheel was set in it, which worked several pumps, and a couple of feet above it lay a pine tree, which had been felled there so as to serve as a bridge. The river was above thirty feet wide, and the tree, not more than a foot and a half in diameter, was in its original condition, perfectly round and smooth, and was, moreover, kept constantly wet with the spray from the wheel, which was so close that one could almost touch it in passing. If one had happened to slip and fall into the water, he would have had about as much chance of coming out alive as if he had fallen before the paddles of a steamer; and any gentleman with shaky legs and unsteady nerves, had he been compelled to pass such a bridge, would most probably have got astride of it, and so worked his passage across. In the mines, however, these “pine-log crossings” were such a very common style of bridge, that every one was used to them, and walked them like a rope-dancer: in fact, there was a degree of pleasant excitement in passing a very slippery and difficult one such as this.
CHAPTER XVII
CHINESE IN THE EARLY DAYS
WHILE at this camp, I went down the river two or three miles to see a place called Mississippi Bar, where a company of Chinamen were at work. After an hour’s climbing along the rocky banks, and having crossed and recrossed the river some half-dozen times on pine logs, I at last got down among the Celestials.
There were about a hundred and fifty of them here, living in a perfect village of small tents, all clustered together on the rocks. They had a claim in the bed of the river, which they were working by means of a wing dam. A “wing dam,” I may here mention, is one which first runs half-way across the river, then down the river, and back again to the same side, thus damming off a portion of its bed without the necessity of the more expensive operation of lifting up the whole river bodily in a “flume.”
The Chinamen’s dam was two or three hundred yards in length, and was built of large pine trees laid one on the top of the other. They must have had great difficulty in handling such immense logs in such a place; but they are exceedingly ingenious in applying mechanical power, particularly in concentrating the force of a large number of men upon one point.
There were Chinamen of the better class among them, who no doubt directed the work, and paid the common men very poor wages—poor at least for California. A Chinaman could be hired for two, or at most three dollars a day by any one who thought their labor worth so much; but those at work here were most likely paid at a still lower rate, for it was well known that whole shiploads of Chinamen came to the country under a species of bondage to some of their wealthy countrymen in San Francisco, who, immediately on their arrival, shipped them off to the mines under charge of an agent, keeping them completely under control by some mysterious celestial influence, quite independent of the accepted laws of the country.