CHAPTER XXII.
VISIT TO THE SONORANIAN CAMP.—FESTIVITIES AND GAMBLING.—THE DOCTOR AND TEAMSTER.—AN ALCALDE TURNED COOK.—THE MINER’S TATTOO.—THE LITTLE DUTCHMAN.—NEW DEPOSITS DISCOVERED.—A WOMAN KEEPING A MONTÉ TABLE.—UP TO THE KNEE AND NINE-PENCE.—THE VOLCANOES AND GOLD.—ARRIVAL OF A BARREL OF RUM.
Friday, Oct. 20. I threw myself into my saddle at an early hour this morning, and started for a cañada, about ten miles distant. The foot-trail which I followed, lay over several sharp ridges to the quick waves of the Stanislaus, and then up a steep mountain spur. I was obliged to dismount, draw myself up by the bushes, and trust to the fidelity of my horse to follow. At last we gained the summit, but it was only to gaze down a wild precipitous descent, where the cliffs hung in toppling terror. A vein of white quartz runs along the ridge, like a line of unmelted snow, with here and there spangles of gold glittering in the sun. I had no implement with me but my hunting-knife, and vainly broke the point of that. I tried one of my pistols; the bullet knocked out the gold-drop, but jewel and lead went over the steep verge together. I let myself down by the bushes, blessing every lythe limb and steadfast root, while my horse, more sagacious, fetched a circuit, and reached the plain before me.
Ascending another ridge, the ravine, which had induced this adventure, lay in jagged wildness beneath. It was in uproarious life; an elk had been shot; and the miners were feasting on its fat ribs. The repast was hardly over, when the monté table, with its piles of gold, glimmered in the shade. It was the great camp of the Sonoranians, and hundreds were crowding around to reach the bank, and deposit their treasures on the turn of a card. They seemed to play for the excitement, and often doubled their stakes whether they won or lost. They apparently connect no moral obliquity with the game; one of them, who sleeps near my camping-tree, will kneel by the half hour on the sharp rock in his Ave Marias, while the keen night-wind cuts his scarce clad frame, then rise and stake his last dollar at monté. At the break of day he is on his knees again, and his prayer trembles up with the first trill of the waking birds. It was in this ravine that a few weeks since the largest lump of gold found in California was discovered. It weighs twenty-three pounds, is nearly pure, and cubic in its form. Its discovery shook the whole mines; the shout of the eureka swelled on the wind like the cheer of seamen when the pharos breaks through a stormy night. I waved my adieu to the miners, and fetching a bold circuit to the east, reached at night-fall my camping-tree.
Saturday, Oct. 21. Extravagant charges here are often made as offsets. A doctor of my acquaintance, wishing to remove to another cañada a few miles off, tost his machine into an empty wagon, bound in that direction, and on arriving, asked the teamster what he was to pay; the reply was a hundred dollars! which was planked down without a word. Soon after this the teamster had a grip of the cholic, from which he sought relief in two or three of the doctor’s pills. The relieved patient now asked what he was to pay; the doctor, after a few moment’s abstraction, in which he seemed to be rummaging his memory more than his medicines, replied, “The charge is exactly one hundred dollars!” “Ah,” said the wagoner, “I knew that cradle would yet rock thunder at me.” But he paid the fee, and squared the account.
I have been out for several hours this morning scouring a conical hill crowned with quartz. I took with me the sailor, who knocked his cup of gold out of sight by an accidental glance of his pick. We searched the hill from top to bottom, shivered the quartz on its summit, and rummaged among the fragments of the same, which the storms of ages had swept to its base, but we found no gold. Following one of the slopes which terminated in a glen, overhung with willows, and where a current had flowed, we struck into a confined basin, where we found, among the pebbles, a deposit of gold, and gathered, in the course of the day, about two ounces; with beautiful trophies we returned to camp.
Monday, Oct. 23. It was now near noon, and my day to cook the dinner; so I hastened back to our camping-tree, and piling up the half-extinguished brands, soon raised a fire. Then taking a tin pan, which served alternately as a gold-washer and a bread-tray, I turned into it a few pounds of flour, a small solution of saleratus, and a few quarts of water, and then went to work in it with my hands, mixing it up and adding flour till I got it to the right consistency; then shaping it into a loaf, raked open the embers, and rolled it in, covering it with the live coals. While this baking was going on, I placed in a stew-pan, after pounding it pretty well between two stones, a string of jerked-beef, with a small quantity of water, and lodged it on the fire. Then taking some coffee, which had been burnt the evening before, I tied it in the end of a napkin, and hammering it to pieces between two stones, turned it into a coffee-pot filled with water, and placed that, too, on the fire. In half an hour or so my bread was baked, my jerk-beef stewed, and my coffee boiled. I settled the latter by turning on it a pint of cold water. The bread was well done; a little burnt on one side, and somewhat puffed up, like the expectations of the gold-digger in the morning, or the vanity of a stump-orator just after a cheer. My companions returned, and seating ourselves on the ground, each with a tin cup of coffee, a junk of bread, and a piece of the stewed jerky, our dinner was soon dispatched, and with a relish which the epicure never yet felt or fancied. The water here is slightly impregnated with iron and sulphur; the one acting as a tonic, the other as an aperient. And then this fine mountain air, some eight hundred feet above the level of the sea, all conduce to health and buoyancy of spirits. Among the hundred gold-diggers around, not one hypochondriac throws on rock or rill the shadow of a long countenance. Even they who hardly get out gold enough to pay their way, laugh at their bad luck, and hope for better success to-morrow. They have yet plenty of tickets in the lottery, and some of them may turn out prizes. At any rate, they are not going to despond while these glens contain an undisturbed bar, or these hills lift their cones of white rock in the sun.
Tuesday, Oct. 24. The ravine in which we are camped runs nearly north and south, and is walled by lofty ranges of precipitous rock. It is near ten o’clock of the day before the rays of the sun strike its depths; but when they do reach you, it is with a power that drives you at once into the shade. It is twilight in the glen, while the cliffs above still blaze in the radiance of the descending orb. As darkness comes on, the camp-fires of the diggers, kindled along the ravine, throw their light into every recess, where forms are seen, gathered in groups, or glancing about, while every now and then some merry tale or apt joke explodes in a roar of laughter. At eight o’clock every tin pan and brass kettle is put in requisition, and the thumpers beat a tattoo, which is concluded with the simultaneous discharge of several muskets. The jargon is enough to frighten the wolf out of his cavern; and yet no harmony that ever rolled from theatrical orchestra or cathedral choir, can charm you half as much. It is the music of the heart reeling itself off through tin pans in melodious numbers. But the musicians are now all sound asleep; their camp-fires wane, and there is only heard the dirge of the pines, murmuring in the night-wind. Thousands who lie on beds of down, under canopies of silk, might envy the sleepers on these rocks their quiet repose. The stars gaze on no groups where slumber shakes from its wings such a refreshing dew.
Wednesday, Oct. 25. A little Dutchman came to me this morning, and informed me, in whispers, that he and his companion had, unbeknown to the rest, stolen off to a glen about three miles distant, where they had found a rich deposit, and then invited me to come and share it with them. He took my pan, which had served as a bread-tray, and we wound over the hills to his glen. Here we found his red-haired companion, knee-deep in mud, which he was shovelling out to reach the bed of clay beneath. On this bed lay the gold in grains about the size of wheat-kernels. Every now and then the water, which was as cold as ice, would gather in the hole, and required to be bailed out or drained off. The chill of the water was enough for me; I had tried that once before, and felt no disposition to repeat the experiment. The mud I could stand, for I was already dirty as a pig just rolling out of his siesta. So I told my young friends to go to work, and I would poke about the edges. They urged me to jump in; and truly the temptation was strong, and required some share of prudence to resist it, but I contented myself with working where I could keep my feet dry. But they several times called for my pan, and filled it with earth, scraped from the clay bed, which I washed out, and then found at the bottom fifteen or twenty dollars in gold. They obtained, as the result of their joint labors through the day, about a thousand dollars. Night was advancing, and I returned over the hills to our camping-tree.
Thursday, Oct. 26. Where is the little Dutchman and the red-haired Paddy? ran in excited inquiry through the ravine this morning, for they had now been missed from the camp twenty-four hours, and no doubt existed on the minds of many that they had found a rich deposit somewhere, and were secretly working it out. I knew well where they were, but no one thought of questioning me on the subject, for I was looked upon as a sort of amateur gold-hunter, very much given to splitting rocks and digging in unproductive places; and, indeed, this was not far from the truth, for my main object was information, and a specimen of wild mountain life.