March 28th. Wood's diggings having given me such sketches as I could take, we took the valley road to Chinese diggings, en route for Hawkin's [Hawkins's] bar, on the Tuolomne. We were assured before we left that "Woods" now only giving five dollars at the most to good workers, once gave as many ounces, and is now kept up on its past reputation by the storekeepers, as all prospectors must pay something; one takes a drink, another some fresh meat, another a pair of boots; all is sold at exorbitant prices, and storekeepers get rich if no one else does. We are now leaving Layton for Sonora Camp, and I, for Hawkin's Bar.
Every turn gives some vista of beauty in this Garden of Eden; the soft southerly breeze is perfumed with the delicate odor of millions of the smaller varieties of prairie flowers, in some places so abundant as to color acres, whole hillsides, so thickly as to hide the ground, and my mule had to eat flowers rather than grass. One without home ties might well feel all his days could be passed in the beauties of these valleys, roseate yellow and blue, so soft that the purest sky cannot surpass the color for delicacy. Tangled masses of vines climb everywhere, hiding the hard surfaces of the quartz rocks, and beyond this exquisite vegetation always some view, wild and impressive, meets the eye.
But to facts: Bob Layton says: "Don't bring your wagons through Chinese Diggings;" and I agree with him, unless you have nine yoke of pretty good oxen to your load of three thousand five hundred pounds. I believe that teams such as these do get about three miles a day across the boggy flat and post-oak quicksands of these diggings. (In many places the body of the luggage wagon is six inches deep in the mud.) This condition lasts from December to March inclusive.
What this country must be in summer I cannot say, but if it cracks as the soil does south of Los Angeles, it must indeed be miserable, and the stories of the Mexicans we met below the Colorado must be true, when they said it was almost impassable.
A few miles on towards Hawkin's Bar on the Tuolomne the country is very fine, and little plains and valleys fill the six miles, all but the last one, which is a steep descent, short and rugged, over clay and rocks. On this ridge the grass is sparse, and "arrow-wood" was plentiful. The day's march over, you set up your tent, and find cool and delicious water from the Tuolomne just as it leaves its mountain gorge; a little creek on the left which has taken its rise below the altitude of snow is twenty degrees warmer, and so more welcome for bathing purposes.
Hawkins's Bar, Tuolumne, Looking Southeast
April 1, 1850
March 29th. The Tuolomne here, one mile above Hawkin's Bar, comes out of a gorge in the hills, which is both steep and rocky, and sends forth the troubled stream to be tossed and dashed over rocks and shallow bars, for miles through hills and chasms until it reaches the plains, when it moves quietly, but still rapidly at this season, as it makes its way to the San Joaquin, ninety or a hundred miles from the mouth of that stream.
The river here rises and falls daily and nightly almost with the regularity of the tide, not ordinarily more than a foot or two, this being due to the effect of the sun on the snows of the mountains; the warmer the day the higher the water. At night many men in parties of from twenty-five to fifty are here engaged in digging canals to drain the bed of the river at low water. I learn however that they are greatly hindered in this by numerous springs in the bottom of the river, and though there is no doubt a great deal of gold, the difficulties of getting it without machinery are more than can be realized by any one who has not been here and tried.