A WAY-SIDE HOUSE AT MIDNIGHT.
(See [page 359].)
After leaving Clinton, where the road from Yale comes in, the road began to ascend, and on the right we passed an extraordinary chasm. Commencing by a gradual depression at the northern end, it became a deep fissure in the rocks about a quarter of a mile in length, ending abruptly in the valley to the south. The depth of the gulf is some 400 or 500 feet, and its width about the same. The sides of the chasm were perpendicular and smooth, as if the rocks had been split asunder. The road still went up, and after a few miles we reached table-land, with a barren sandy soil, thickly covered with small spruce, and intersected by numerous lakes. The accommodation along the road was everywhere miserable enough, but after leaving Clinton it became abominable. The only bed was the floor of the “wayside houses,” which occur every ten miles or so, and are named the “Fiftieth” or “Hundredth Mile House,” according to the number of the nearest mile-post. Our solitary blankets formed poor padding against the inequalities of the rough-hewn boards, and equally ineffectual to keep out the cold draughts which whistled under the ill-fitting door of the hut. A wayside house on the road to the mines is merely a rough log hut of a single room; at one end a large open chimney, and at the side a bar counter, behind which are shelves with rows of bottles containing the vilest of alcoholic drinks. The miners on their journey up or down, according to the season—men of every nationality—Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen, Frenchmen, Italians, and Germans, Yankees and niggers, Mexicans and South Sea Islanders—come dropping in towards evening in twos and threes, divest themselves of the roll of blankets slung upon their backs, and depositing them upon the floor, use them as a seat, for the hut possesses few or none. The next thing is to have a “drink,” which is proposed by some one of the party less “hard up” than his friends, and the rest of the company present are generally invited to join in.
After supper and pipes, and more “drinks,” each unrolls his blankets, and chooses his bed for the night. Some elect to sleep on the counter, and some on the flour sacks piled at one end of the room, whilst the rest stretch themselves on the floor, with their feet to the fire. Occasionally a few commence gambling, which, with an accompaniment of drinking and blasphemy, goes on for the greater part of the night.
Descending from the high land, we came to the “Hundred Mile House,” at Bridge Creek. This is the commencement of a tract of country more fertile than any we met with, except that of the Delta of the Fraser; and yet the amount of good land is of but small extent. Here and there a rich bottom, a consolidated marsh, or the lowland on the banks of some stream, had been converted into a productive farm, and the low hills afford plenty of pasturage; but the whole of the rising ground is merely sand and shingle, and nothing but bunch-grass flourishes there. On the road we met a small bullock-wagon, escorted by about twenty armed miners on foot. This proved to contain 630 pounds weight of gold, the profits of a Mr. Cameron, the principal shareholder in the noted Cameron claim. This gold, worth about £30,000, had been amassed in the short space of three months, and represented probably less than one-half the actual produce of the mine during that time.
At Soda Creek we took the steamer for Quesnelle. Captain Done, the commander, was a jolly, red-faced, portly fellow, of exceeding hospitality. He invited us to his cabin—the only furnished room on board—and bringing out a box of cigars, and ordering a whole decanter full of “brandy cocktail” to be made at once, desired us to make ourselves happy. Every quarter of an hour we were called out by the nigger “bar-keep” to have a drink with the Captain and the “crowd,” as the general company is termed. A refusal would have, been considered grossly rude, and we had to exercise great ingenuity in evading the continual invitations. The only excuse allowed is that of having just had a meal, for a Yankee always drinks on an empty stomach, and never after eating; and American manners and customs rule in the mines. The steamer cost no less than 75,000 dollars, or £15,000; the whole of the machinery and boiler-plates having been brought 200 miles on the backs of mules.
At Quesnelle Mouth we slung our roll of blankets on our backs, and started on foot for William’s Creek. The road was very rough, a narrow pack-trail cut through the woods; the stumps of the felled trees were left in the ground, and the thick stratum of mud in the spaces between was ploughed into deep holes by the continual trampling of mules. The ground had been frozen, and covered with several inches of snow, but this had partially melted, and rendered the surface greasy and slippery. We stumbled about amongst the hardened mud-holes, and our huge jack-boots soon blistered our feet so dreadfully, that by the second day we were almost disabled. Fortunately we picked up a pair of “gumboots”—long boots of India-rubber, used by the miners for working in the water—which had been cast away by the road-side, and substituting these for our cumbrous riding-boots, struggled on less painfully afterwards. The trail, gradually ascending, passed along the sides of pine-clad hills closely packed together, and separated only by the narrowest ravines; we had indeed entered the same region of mountain and forest which we had formerly encountered on the upper part of the North Thompson. By the road-side lay the dead bodies of horses and mules, some standing as they had died, still stuck fast in the deep, tenacious mud. We passed a score of them in one day in full view; and hundreds, which had turned aside to die, lay hidden in the forest which shut in the trail so closely. Martens and wood-partridges were numerous, and a tall Yankee, from the State of Maine, who had joined our company, greatly distinguished himself, knocking them over with his revolver from the tops of the high pines in a manner which astonished us. As we approached William’s Creek, the ascent became more rapid and the snow deeper, for the frost at this height had been unbroken.
On the evening of the third day’s march we reached Richfield, sixty-five miles from the Mouth of Quesnelle; but, acting on the advice of our friend from Maine, walked on through Barkerville to Cameron Town, lower down the same creek, where the richest mines were being at this time worked. It was already dark, and we had a rough walk of it—along the bottom of the narrow ravine through which runs William’s Creek, scrambling over “flumes,” logs, and heaps of rubbish for about two miles, before we doffed our packs at Cusheon’s Hotel. We had reached Cariboo at last, although by a much more roundabout way than we originally intended.
CHAPTER XIX.
William’s Creek, Cariboo—The Discoverers—The Position and Nature of the Gold Country—Geological Features—The Cariboo District—Hunting the Gold up the Fraser to Cariboo—Conjectured Position of the Auriferous Quartz Veins—Various kinds of Gold—Drawbacks to Mining in Cariboo—The Cause of its Uncertainty—Extraordinary Richness of the Diggings—“The Way the Money Goes”—Miners’ Eccentricities—Our Quarters at Cusheon’s—Price of Provisions—The Circulating Medium—Down in the Mines—Profits and Expenses—The “Judge”—Our Farewell Dinner—The Company—Dr. B——l waxes Eloquent—Dr. B——k’s Noble Sentiments—The Evening’s Entertainment—Dr. B——l Retires, but is heard of again—General Confusion—The Party Breaks Up—Leave Cariboo—Boating down the Fraser—Camping Out—William’s Lake—Catastrophe on the River—The Express Wagon—Difficulties on the Way—The Express-man prophesies his own Fate—The Road beyond Lytton—A Break Down—Furious Drive into Yale—Victoria once more.