George Payson

“ Flowers of the greatest beauty and variety sprung up, as if by magic, in a single night; there were here no masses of snow and ice whose gradual thaw keeps back the tardy, lingering spring long after the sun has passed the equator; he looked upon the earth with gladsome eye, and every ray was the birth of a flower.
As we lay in our tent, in listless idleness, through the sultry hours of noon, the uninterrupted buzzing of the flies that already heralded the approach of summer, fell on the ear like the murmur of a brook over its pebbly bed, or the sighing of the wind among the trees ”

“ Still we made little or nothing, and again returned to the dam.
There were several ugly leaks that defied all our efforts; boat-load after boat-load of earth was emptied on the spot—bushels of old clothes, enough to make the fortune of all the rag merchants of Little Germany, collected in the neighbourhood, and carefully stowed away at the bottom by the most amphibious of our party, who used to emerge from his bath, dripping like a river-god and shivering as in an ague—all was in vain. It was really too bad; we had stopped the whole river, but we could not stop that trifling leak. ”

“ It was usual in the mines, when one went a prospecting, for him to sling his blanket on his back, and, with his pick in one hand and his shovel in the other, creep slowly up and down the rivers, sleeping at night on a rock, and solacing his labour with a slice of salt pork and a bit of biscuit. If his journey were long, and he were able to afford the expense, he would sometimes aspire to the dignity of a mule to transport his tools and provisions, and perhaps himself; but it was reserved for Mowbray to introduce so magnificent an innovation. ”

“ As we were now in constant expectation of receiving an answer to the letter I had written in February, in regard to the submarine armour, we walked to Georgetown as often as we could muster courage to ascend the hill; and, though we were often disappointed in the object of our visit, we never failed to be rewarded for our labour. After living so long in that narrow valley, the high rolling country above seemed almost like a new creation. Our thoughts expanded with the horizon, and we breathed purer and easier, as if we had just escaped from prison, or the dismal depths of a mine. ”

“ There was near us no human sight nor sound—a rising hill hid the drowsy little village entirely from our view, and the whirling tide of which we had so lately formed a part, swept by unheeded.
Often, as we lay reclined on the thick bed of pine that covered the floor of our tent, the wind sounding hollow among the trees imposed upon us the delightful illusion that we heard afar off the bells of our native city; time and space were forgotten—everything about us seemed dreamy and unsubstantial—a curious phantasmagoria, to which we surrendered ourselves without any interfering reflection. ”

“ It was a cold grey day; the deck of the Leucothea was sloppy with melting snow, and littered with chaotic little piles of luggage, among which the passengers wandered up and down like a hundred cats smelling about in a strange garret. Some were still crouched, shiveringly, on the high piles of lumber amid ships, to which they had ascended to take their last view of home; others jostled in the gangways, as they revolved in their uneasy orbits from stem to stern; while a third party, without any ostensible motive, kept running up and down the cabin-stairs. ”

“ The rain, the thunder, and the lightning that now followed hard after us, were such as are met with only in the tropics;—the road soon became a river in earnest, and as the lightning flashed on the swollen and turbid waters, and the cart rocked and pitched with even more than its usual violence, it required but a slight exercise of imagination to feel that we were in a storm at sea. ”

“ We were finally compelled to leave our beds, and leaning against the bags and boxes in the middle of the tent, we fell asleep, like the ship-boy on the high and giddy mast, in all that elemental uproar.
Returning sunshine wrought a wondrous alteration in our feelings. The country, always beautiful, now presented a still more attractive appearance. After months of drought and dust, Nature seemed to have washed her face and put on her best attire, while the birds singing in every tree, and the fresh [Pg 120] green of the shooting grass, were far more suggestive of May than of November. ”

“ August 22d we spoke the Memnon, one hundred and fifteen days from New York, and asked for a supply of water. While they were getting it out of the hold, her main and mizzen topsails were hove aback, and she lay almost motionless on the water, yet apparently trembling with suppressed eagerness. She was by far the finest ship we had seen—a clipper of a thousand tons;—her tall rakish masts were crowded with canvass, and her long, low hull, beneath its rounded softness of outline, seemed, like the "velvet grace" of a tiger, to promise muscles of prodigious flexibility and power. ”

“ At two our long afternoon commenced, and, ah! how earnestly we desired the shadow, bringing with it health and refreshing. Slowly but gently our work went on, like the coral island rising from the deep Pacific. As we hemmed in the headstrong river, the pond above our dam continually enlarged, and more of the water was compelled to find its way through the canal.
But now my companions were impatient to obtain the reward of their labour, and they all said, "Let's go to work in the river bed and earn a little money." ”

“ A lantern was suspended at our poop, and guided by its light, which seemed quite absorbed by the immense darkness, she came cautiously feeling her way along, till, suddenly shooting into our little illuminated horizon, she hove to and waited to know our pleasure. All the while our ship was silent as the grave, but more than a hundred pair of eyes were peeping through the blanket of the night, as if, though the frailest and softest things, they would really tear it into shreds. We had no sooner, however, learned the destination of the stranger than our decks swarmed with sudden life. ”

“ Having eaten our breakfast of savoury fritters, or less pleasing ship-biscuit, molasses, and fried pork, and thoroughly warmed our inner man with a pint of coffee, black as night, we sallied forth to our work, leaving our tent and all its contents in perfect security, even if we should be gone for weeks. In no country in the world were life and property ever more secure than at that time in the mines of California. ”

“ They gave us for supper some wretched tea, of which I drank eagerly four or five cups—cold stewed beans, and an apple-sauce of dried peaches, of which I ate more sparingly, but my stomach, with superior instinct, refused to retain any such villainous combination. We slept on the dirty open floor of the dining-room, fanned by the night air sifting through, cold and dust-laden—and lulled by the beating of that mill that will henceforth, while the world stands, be more renowned in story than many a royal palace. ”

“ This little Dutchman was sitting one evening in the door of his tent, tranquilly smoking his pipe, and watching the horseman ineffectually striving to drive an unusually vicious animal into the pound, when the fierce beast suddenly made a dash in his direction. There was no safety but in flight, so hastily starting up, he rushed into his tent, hoping thus to elude the attack; but the ox, too cunning to be deceived so easily, or unable to check his headlong career, dashed in after him, and the next moment burst madly down the hill, carrying the tent on his horns. ”

“ To my eye, at least, the tangled, unbroken foliage of the tropics is slovenly and monotonous compared with the shaven fields and trim forests of New England. I missed that pleasant green that carpets all but our most barren hills. Nothing else, not even the architectural beauty of the cocoa palm with the tinkling music that the softest breeze steals from its ivory leaves, can compensate for the nakedness of the soil. It reminds one of an Indian chief, terrible in his war paint and graceful with his nodding plumes, but otherwise as naked as the day he was born. ”

“ Little boys of ten or twelve called imperiously for brandy smashes, and staked their all on the turn of a card, or the rolling of a ball with hideous nonchalance; while the next moment oaths as big as cannon balls rolled from their hard lips to testify their impish malice or exultation. The simple novice from some New England village, who has never before been farther from home than the nearest town, proud of his first beard, and champing the ends of his moustache between his lips, sidles timidly up to the bar, and calls in a low voice for a glass of lemonade. ”

“ We hailed the first dawn of day with intense satisfaction; before the sun was up our coffee-pot was singing over a crackling blaze, and a steak sizzling in the frying-pan sent forth a most savoury odour. There is an immense difference between going to bed darkling and supperless, and getting up to a hearty breakfast on a bright sunshiny morning; we were no longer the same persons, and, full of beef and coffee, felt ready to encounter any difficulty that might present itself. ”

“ It is impossible to describe the beauty and glory of California at that fine season. The crisp frosty air of the morning is quickly succeeded by a warm hazy glow resembling that of our Indian summer. It is not summer, nor spring, nor autumn, but a most artful and delicious combination of all three. The country is an endless succession of hills, whose distant slopes remind one continually of thrifty apple orchards, while from every summit a prospect is presented apparently out of all proportion to the trifling elevation. ”

“ The thoughts of home with which all were occupied, though they produced a silence and reserve strangely in contrast with the noisy hilarity of the voyage out, at the same time disposed all to bear the hardships and annoyances incident to their situation with patience and good humour. We became by degrees, like a barrel of apples, shaken and jolted into our places until we were able to move about the deck without displacing another at every step. The prospect of a speedy run, and the hope of beating the Panama that was to start two days after us, heightened the general satisfaction. ”

“ A crowd of spectators stand looking on, either men hired by the company, or miners in the red bank. Hairy rheumatic Bill, the Captain's cook, with ladle in hand, alternates from the table to the fire, divided between a fierce avaricious love of his half share and a more tender solicitude for the soup simmering in the corner. "Well, Capting, how much has us got to-night?" says Jimmy, and "How much to a sheer?" cries a Missourian sitting on the lower end of the long table, and craning his neck and goggling his eyes after a most alarming fashion. ”

“ The character of the Humboldt, our new acquaintance, was equally unmistakable. She was an out-and-out vagrant, a beggar born and bred, with an hereditary taint of mendicity that all great Neptune's ocean could not wash out, and all the perfumes of Arabia could not sweeten. She was ninety-eight days from Panama, having left that port about the time we passed Cape Horn, so that we had gained on her the whole length of South America. She had on board three hundred and sixty-five passengers, and a more squalid set of wretches are seldom seen in so small a compass. ”

“ Among all this, in the midst of all these symbols of wealth and power, the miner who had called them into being, moved about with an air of sturdy independence, which received a fresh accession every time he squeezed, between his thumb and fingers, the buckskin bag in his breeches' pocket. Little groups assembled at the corners, and in the principal stores, each one striving to surpass the last speaker in his stories of big lumps,—of holes that paid five or ten dollars a bucket,—and of pockets that made the lucky finder rich in a single hour. ”

“ While our coffee was boiling, he began to sing the praises of some bean soup he had just concocted; and, on my expressing some doubt of its excellence, nothing would do but I must taste it. "There," said he, as I dipped my iron spoon into the shallow tin plate he had provided, "what do you say to that?" I was forced to acknowledge that it was very good indeed, and I further flattered the old man's vanity by asking for the recipe, which he gave me at once, with an infinite deal of chuckling and gesticulation, flying round all the while among his pots and kettles with twice his usual dexterity. ”

“ After exhausting all the objections usual in such cases, as that the law was unjust, unconstitutional, and the like, and thus rousing his democratic sympathies to the proper level, he would exclaim with admirable pertinency, and pausing for a moment in his labours, with the brimming scoop of sugar or flour in his uplifted hand, "We call America the land of the free and the brave, and all that; and then, when the poor fellows come here and try to earn a little money, we put a tax on their labour!" ”

“ Drawn back among the bushes and trees that shaded the hill, I looked down the winding path upon a wide valley, like an immense panorama, with the South Fork glancing, here and there, like a string of pearls among the hills, that peeped over each other's shoulders on every side as far as the eye could reach, bounded only in one direction, by the everlasting snows of the Sierra Nevada. Parties of miners flowed by in a continuous current, generally with packmules, but now and then a loaded wagon. ”