Thursday, Nov. 16. Replenishing our panniers with hard bread, and a few pounds of dried venison and coffee, we bade adieu to our Oregonian friends and the hospitable proprietor of Stockton, and were off for our distant home. Our trail for sixteen miles lay through an arid plain, when we brought up on the bold bank of the San Joaquin. Our saddles, bridles, packs, and persons were thrown into a boat, our horses driven into the stream, and over we dashed to the opposite bank, where we paid two dollars each for our ferriage, and mounted for a fresh start. It was near sunset when we reached the line of trees which belt, with their thick umbrage, the great valley which stretches in barrenness beyond. Here we camped for the night, and soon found, to our pleasurable surprise, our friends Lieut. Bonnycastle and Lieut. Morehead, of the army, in a camp not more than an arrow’s flight distant. They were on their way to the mines, and if excellent qualities of head and heart can secure success, must return with fortunes. Night deepened apace, and our simple repast finished, we wrapped ourselves in our blankets, and were soon in sound sleep.
Friday, Nov. 17. The day glimmered over the hill-tops: a cup of coffee, a cake of hard bread, and a scrap of dried venison, and we were under way again. Our trail lay for fifteen miles over the prairie of the San Joaquin. Though now in November, yet the heat was oppressive. We encountered groups of disbanded volunteers, on their way to the mines. The soldiers’ improvidence had left but very few the means of procuring horses, and they were generally on foot, and crippled with blisters. Going to the mines is one thing; returning from them is another. A dream of victory animates the soldier, and visions of gold stimulate the digger. It is only the result under which the heart droops and the muscles give way.
It was mid-day when we struck the hills which roll their low forests to the verge of the prairie. In a glen, where sparkled a spring and the pine threw its shadows, we encountered an elderly man and his little boy. The parent was silent, downcast, and abstracted, and his boy was evidently trying to cheer him. The father, in reply to our inquiries, informed us that they had been in the mines, where, by great industry and good fortune, they had got out twenty pounds of gold; that on their return they had camped for the night near Stockton; that leaving their camping-tree for a few hours to renew their stock of provisions, they had buried their bag of gold under the tree; but on their return their gold could not be found! that the most diligent search had led to no results; that he had been robbed! that the loss was less for him, but that he had eight motherless children, dependent on him for a support. Who could listen to such a tale as this and not feel his blood tingle at the callous wretch who could thus ruin another? Even the forgiving Uncle Toby would deliver him over to the avenging angel, to be driven down under double-bolted thunder: nothing could rescue him, unless the Universalists catch him in their creed, which saves a man in spite of the Evil One, and in spite of himself, too.
We invited the father and son to join our company; and when on the way, the little boy, who was mounted on a pony at my side, told me a subscription had been started at Stockton for his father, and that Mr. Weber and Dr. Isabell had subscribed a pound of gold each. Blessings on those liberal men! such a charity will throw a circle of light around misfortune, should it ever be their lot. The sun was far down his western dip when we reached the hospitable hearth of our friend Mr. Livermore; but finding that he had no grain for our horses, and that the grass around had utterly perished under the summer’s drought, we determined to push on; and, crossing a plain of eight miles, reached the mountain rollers, where we struck into a ravine, through which a streamlet murmured, and where a plot of grass still preserved some portion of its freshness. Here we tethered and camped. The brief twilight that remained had passed into night’s bosom before we had gathered sufficient wood for our camp-fire: and we needed a large pile; for the air was chill and penetrating. We made our supper on hard bread, dried venison, and coffee; while clouds, the sure precursors of the winter rains, drifted above in sluggish masses. Our camp-fire threw its column of waving flame on the beetling crags; not a sound from cavern or cliff disturbed the silence; we gazed into the fire, lost in pensive musing; and a more melancholy group seldom gathers over that face—
“Where life’s last parting pulse has ceased to play,”
when an owl perched near, gave a deep hoot! Each broke into an involuntary laugh. The philosophy of that transition I leave to those whose metaphysical acumen can split the shadow which falls between melancholy and mirth.
Saturday, Nov. 18. Another morn full of rosy charms comes blushing over the hills; at the glance of her eye the shadows flee away, and the birds awaken into song. The stir of preparation rustles the leaves under our camping-tree, and while the dew yet gems the grass, we are up and away. What salient freshness and force are in the heart which takes its pulses from the waving wild-wood and the dashing stream! The exhilaration in its fullest tide never ebbs; it bears you on with sympathies and enjoyments still expanding, till all nature, with her intense life and rapture, is yours.
Our path, which lay through a mountain gorge, bent its line to a winding rivulet, laughing and singing through the solitude. Little cared that for marble fount or sculptured dolphin; it was happy in its own free life, and the kisses of the enamored pebbles, which danced in its limpid wave. And now the white walls of the old church, where the mission of San José reared its altars, glimmered into vision. Fast and far the separating interval was left behind, when we dashed up to its welcome portal. Here we found an Irish restaurant, and set its culinary functions in motion—
“Nothing’s more sure at moments to take hold
Of the best feelings of mankind, which grow