Saturday, Nov. 11. I encountered an old man to-day, sitting listlessly on a rock under the broken shade of a decayed oak. A few gray hairs strayed from under his camping-cap, and his face was deeply wrinkled; but his eye flashed, at intervals, with the fires of an unquenched spirit. He had not, as he told me, obtained an ounce of gold in this ravine, and was about trying some other locality. I advised him to roll over the rock on which he was sitting; he said he would do it to please me; but as for gold, he might as well look for a weasel in a watchman’s rattle. The rock was easily rolled from its inclined position; beneath it was found a layer of moss, and beneath this, in the crevices of another rock, a deposit of gold, in the shape of pumpkin-seeds, bright as if fresh from the mint, and weighing over half a pound. The eyes of the old man sparkled; but he was thinking of his home and those left behind.
Sunday, Nov. 12. Could the parents of the youth in these glens cast a glance at their children, what a tide of affection and concern would rush through their hearts! No treasured ship at sea was ever environed by deeper perils; storms lower in thick darkness above, and breakers thunder below, and no pharos throws its friendly ray from the shrouded cliff. The only light they have to guide them is in their own tempest-tost bark, and the lamp in the binnacle is dim. The merchant who should send his ship to sea without compass or rudder, would not be more frantic and foolish than the parent who sends his son out upon the world without any religion in his soul. These youths in these glens are to shape the destinies of California; under their hands her political, social, and moral institutions are to be reared. Unless religion lie at the foundations, these structures, though columned with gold, will fall. It was frailty and rottenness at the base that has left all the proud fabrics of the Old World a storied mass of ruins.
Monday, Nov. 13. A mounted company of gold-diggers arrived on our camping premises last evening, and we struck in for four horses, which we purchased at their own prices. Mine is an Indian pony from Oregon, full of heart and hardihood; but as for ease of motion, you might as well ride a trip-hammer. But an extremity makes the most indifferent gift of nature a blessed boon.
We reduced our effects to the fewest articles possible, and packing these, with provisions for three or four days, upon little Nina, were ready for a start. Two Oregonian trappers joined us, and before the sun’s rays struck the depths of the ravine, we were off, with three hearty cheers from the diggers. An hour brought us to the summit of an elevation, beneath which lay, in panoramic life, the ravines, rivulets, rambling paths, and roving groups of the gold-hunters. I have walked on the roaring verge of Niagara, through the grumbling parks of London, on the laughing boulevards of Paris, among the majestic ruins of Rome, in the torch-lit galleries of Herculaneum, around the flaming crater of Vesuvius, through the wave-reflected palaces of Venice, among the monumental remains of Athens, and beneath the barbaric splendors of Constantinople: but none of these, nor all combined, have left in my memory a page graven with more significant and indelible characters than the gold diggins of California.
Our route lay for several miles through a succession of narrow ravines, above which soared the stupendous steeps of a mountain range, through which some convulsion of nature had sunk these shadowy chasms. Here and there some giant bluff had plunged into the winding abyss, as if to shut out the profane intruder from its silent sanctuaries. These granite gates became at last so frequent, that we determined to try the ridge, the table-rock, or less precipitous slope. We wound up the steep sides of the pass one by one, as a weary bird at sea scales the tempest-cloud; and at last emerged upon a lofty range of trap, feathered by the fir and low pine, and where the eagle had made himself a home. A wide sea of chasms and cones lay around us. These were evidently the bleak monuments of volcanoes, which ages since had rested from their labors. The sun threw its level rays along their summits, while the abysses lay in perpetual shadow. No path threw its trail on the eye. Rounding a pinnacle, which stood as a fortress at the abrupt termination of one of the ranges, we discovered a slope which slanted off less steeply than the rest. Here, dismounting, we let ourselves down for several hundred yards by the bushes; Nina, sure of foot as a fox, followed first; my Indian pony next; and then the rest, as the docility or courage of each induced. All our horses had been trained by mountaineers, and well knew, if left behind, what must be their fate. What a strange affection for such an animal springs up at such an hour as this! As he comes down to join you, selecting you out as his rider, snuffing about you, and inviting you to mount again, you involuntarily throw your arms about his neck, and try to make him understand the kindness you feel for him.
We discovered in the last flashes of twilight a gush of waters from the rocks, which beetled over a cañada, where the grass was fresh from the showering spray. We had struck this spot through no sagacity of our own; Nina, snuffing the water long before it flashed upon us, had turned into the ravine, and dashed ahead upon the gallop. Here we camped for the night. The dried willows supplied us with fuel, the cascade with water, and our panniers with a piece of pork, and a few pounds of flour, which the kneading-tray and embers soon converted into bread. The stones were made to grind our coffee, and we were soon seated to a supper from which the epicure might perhaps turn away, but which these rough mountains made a luxury. And then the repose, though on the earth with your saddle for a pillow, yet how refreshing and profound! Nor bark of wolf, nor murmur of cascade, nor rustle of the bear disturbed my dreams that night.
Tuesday, Nov. 14. We were up, had taken our coffee, and were ready for a start, while as yet only the whispering trees on the higher cliffs had been greeted by the sun. Our course, which was determined by a pocket-compass, now lay among mountain spurs, till we reached the rollers, which ridge the plain of the San Joaquin. In a copse of birch, which shadows one of these, we discovered a spring, where we lunched and rested for an hour, while our animals refreshed themselves on the grass, still green on the marge of the fount. We were now off for a hard ride of several hours. My little Indian hammered into it with a resolution that paid but little heed to the discomfort of his rider. Our object was to reach before night-fall the cabin of an old friend, who had nested himself out here among these wild mountain crags. We dashed around this steep, and over that, like hunters in the chase; while Nina, without rein or rider, led the way. We had no trail to guide us,—only the instinct of our animals, and that sagacity which a mountain life converts into a sort of prophetic knowledge. The day was dying fast, and no gleam of the cabin cheered the eye. The night would render all search hopeless. At last we struck the stream on which we knew the cabin stood, but whether up or down its current, we could not decide; but Nina, after pausing a moment, led quick and resolutely up the stream, and we struck in after. The step of a weasel may turn the balanced rock.
Three miles of fast riding brought us to a grove of oak, now wrapped in the purple twilight. Along this we streamed till reaching a bold bend, which circled up into its shadows, when the fagot flame of the cottage struck the eye. Our horses bounded forward on the gallop, knowing as well as we that the weary day was now over. Here we found my friend, Dr. Isabell and his good lady, who gave us a hearty welcome. True, their cabin had but one room in it; but what of that?—hearts make a home in the wilderness. Our first care was for our animals, which were soon watered and turned into a rich meadow, with a faithful Indian to watch them through the night. Our busy hostess soon announced supper—beefsteak, omelet, hot rolls, and coffee, with sugar and cream! If you want to know how that supper relished, come and live a month in the mines of California. We run over our adventures since leaving Monterey, and they chimed in well with those of our host in his wild-wood home. Kindred and friends far away came sweeping down on the stream of memory, and gathered life-like and warm at our sides. We lived over again all our school-days, our rustic sports, our husking-bees, our youthful loves, and those stolen kisses, which the sterner rules of refinement have interdicted only to give place to Polkas, in which modesty is too much bewildered to blush. Our hospitable friends welcomed us to all the sleeping comforts which their cabin afforded; but we camped under the trees, and were soon afloat in the realm of dreams, amid its visioned forms.
“Alas! that dreams are only dreams!
That fancy cannot give