Monday, June 12. A straggler came in to-day from the American Fork, bringing a piece of yellow ore weighing an ounce. The young dashed the dirt from their eyes, and the old from their spectacles. One brought a spyglass, another an iron ladle; some wanted to melt it, others to hammer it, and a few were satisfied with smelling it. All were full of tests; and many, who could not be gratified in making their experiments, declared it a humbug. One lady sent me a huge gold ring, in the hope of reaching the truth by comparison; while a gentleman placed the specimen on the top of his gold-headed cane and held it up, challenging the sharpest eyes to detect a difference. But doubts still hovered on the minds of the great mass. They could not conceive that such a treasure could have lain there so long undiscovered. The idea seemed to convict them of stupidity. There is nothing of which a man is more tenacious than his claims to sagacity. He sticks to them like an old bachelor to the idea of his personal attractions, or a toper to the strength of his temperance ability, whenever he shall wish to call it into play.
Thursday, June 15. Found an Indian to-day perfectly sober, who is generally drunk, and questioned him of the cause of his sobriety. He stated that he wished to marry an Indian girl, and she would not have him unless he would keep sober a month; that this was but his third day, and he should never be able to stand it unless I would put him beyond the reach of liquor. So I sentenced him to the public works for a month; this will pay off old scores, and help him to a wife, who may perhaps keep him sober, though I fear there is little hope of that.
Tuesday, June 20. My messenger sent to the mines, has returned with specimens of the gold; he dismounted in a sea of upturned faces. As he drew forth the yellow lumps from his pockets, and passed them around among the eager crowd, the doubts, which had lingered till now, fled. All admitted they were gold, except one old man, who still persisted they were some Yankee invention, got up to reconcile the people to the change of flag. The excitement produced was intense; and many were soon busy in their hasty preparations for a departure to the mines. The family who had kept house for me caught the moving infection. Husband and wife were both packing up; the blacksmith dropped his hammer, the carpenter his plane, the mason his trowel, the farmer his sickle, the baker his loaf, and the tapster his bottle. All were off for the mines, some on horses, some on carts, and some on crutches, and one went in a litter. An American woman, who had recently established a boarding-house here, pulled up stakes, and was off before her lodgers had even time to pay their bills. Debtors ran, of course. I have only a community of women left, and a gang of prisoners, with here and there a soldier, who will give his captain the slip at the first chance. I don’t blame the fellow a whit; seven dollars a month, while others are making two or three hundred a day! that is too much for human nature to stand.
Saturday, July 15. The gold fever has reached every servant in Monterey; none are to be trusted in their engagement beyond a week, and as for compulsion, it is like attempting to drive fish into a net with the ocean before them. Gen. Mason, Lieut. Lanman, and myself, form a mess; we have a house, and all the table furniture and culinary apparatus requisite; but our servants have run, one after another, till we are almost in despair: even Sambo, who we thought would stick by from laziness, if no other cause, ran last night; and this morning, for the fortieth time, we had to take to the kitchen, and cook our own breakfast. A general of the United States Army, the commander of a man-of-war, and the Alcalde of Monterey, in a smoking kitchen, grinding coffee, toasting a herring, and peeling onions! These gold mines are going to upset all the domestic arrangements of society, turning the head to the tail, and the tail to the head. Well, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good: the nabobs have had their time, and now comes that of the “niggers.” We shall all live just as long, and be quite as fit to die.
Tuesday, July 18. Another bag of gold from the mines, and another spasm in the community. It was brought down by a sailor from Yuba river, and contains a hundred and thirty-six ounces. It is the most beautiful gold that has appeared in the market; it looks like the yellow scales of the dolphin, passing through his rainbow hues at death. My carpenters, at work on the school-house, on seeing it, threw down their saws and planes, shouldered their picks, and are off for the Yuba. Three seamen ran from the Warren, forfeiting their four years’ pay; and a whole platoon of soldiers from the fort left only their colors behind. One old woman declared she would never again break an egg or kill a chicken, without examining yolk and gizzard.
Saturday, July 22. The laws by which an alcalde here is governed, in the administration of justice, are the Mexican code as compiled in Frebrero and Alverez—works of remarkable comprehensiveness, clearness, and facility of application. They embody all the leading principles of the civil law, derived from the institutes of Justinian. The common law of England is hardly known here, though its rules and maxims have more or less influenced local legislation. But with all these legal provisions a vast many questions arise which have to be determined ex cathedra. In minor matters the alcalde is often himself the law; and the records of his court might reveal some very exquisite specimens of judicial prerogative; such as shaving a rogue’s head—lex talionis—who had shaved the tail of his neighbor’s horse; or making a busybody, who had slandered a worthy citizen, promenade the streets with a gag in his mouth; or obliging a man who had recklessly caused a premature birth, to compensate the bereaved father for the loss of that happiness which he might have derived from his embryo hope, had it budded into life. This last has rather too many contingencies about it; but the principle, which reaches it and meets the offender, does very well out here in California, and would not be misapplied in some of those pill-shops which slope the path to crime in the United States.
Thursday, July 27. I never knew mosquitoes turned to any good account save in California; and here it seems they are sometimes ministers of justice. A rogue had stolen a bag of gold from a digger in the mines, and hid it. Neither threats nor persuasions could induce him to reveal the place of its concealment. He was at last sentenced to a hundred lashes, and then informed that he would be let off with thirty, provided he would tell what he had done with the gold; but he refused. The thirty lashes were inflicted, but he was still stubborn as a mule.
He was then stripped naked and tied to a tree. The mosquitoes with their long bills went at him, and in less than three hours he was covered with blood. Writhing and trembling from head to foot with exquisite torture, he exclaimed, “Untie me, untie me, and I will tell where it is.” “Tell first,” was the reply. So he told where it might be found. Some of the party then, with wisps, kept off the still hungry mosquitoes, while others went where the culprit had directed, and recovered the bag of gold. He was then untied, washed with cold water, and helped to his clothes, while he muttered, as if talking to himself, “I couldn’t stand that anyhow.”
Friday, July 28. A little laughing girl tripped into the office to-day, and handed me a bunch of flowers, which she said her mother sent me. “And who is your mother, my sweet one?” I inquired. She told me, and I then remembered that I had recovered for her a silver cup, which an Indian had stolen; and these flowers had now come as a memento.
“Fee me with flowers, they hold no sordid bribe.”