Henry Vizetelly

“ It was not easy to pick our way through the crowds of strange people who were moving backwards and forwards in every direction. Carts were passing to and fro; groups of Indians squatting on their haunches were chattering together, and displaying to one another the flaring red and yellow handkerchiefs, the scarlet blankets, and muskets of the most worthless Brummagem make, for which they had been exchanging their bits of gold, while their squaws looked on with the most perfect indifference. ”

“ At noon we halted to refresh by the side of a small stream of crystal purity. While making preparations for our hurried meal, we had all our eyes about us for gold in the channel of the rivulet, but saw none. We had not yet reached the favoured spot. After some difficulty in catching the pack-horses, one of the perverse brutes having taken it into its head to march up to its belly in the stream, where he floundered about for some time, enjoying the coolness of the water, we set forward, determined to reach the lower diggings by sundown. ”

“ As we neared the spot the ground gradually became more broken and heavily timbered with oak and pine, while in the distance, and separated from us by deep forests of these trees, might be seen a long ridge of snow-capped mountains—the lofty Sierra Nevada. But we were too anxious to reach the gold to care much about the more unprofitable beauties of Nature, and accordingly urged our horses to the quickest speed they could put forth. ”

“ How that a man has to travel, from the first faint break of grey light in the morning, as hard as his horse will carry him, over a desert of white salt—which crunches and crumbles beneath his horse's tread at every step he takes—until the sun has gone down behind the tall peaks of the distant Sierra Nevada. ”

“ He will hunt for us, but will have nothing to do with gold digging and washing. He has a tolerable contempt for dollars, or else he would have demanded higher wages. A man who has spent nearly all his life in the wilderness, who has known no wants but such as his rifle could quickly supply, may, however, well look with contempt on the "root of all evil." If he were hungry, a shot at some panting elk or bellowing buffalo would stock him with food for weeks to come. If he were athirst, the clear water of some sparkling rivulet would yield him all that he would require. ”

“ We found our horses in readiness in the hotel yard, in charge of a servant (here called a vaquero) of Mr. Bradley's. The latter, having business to transact at Monterey, accompanied us. My horse was equipped after the Spanish fashion, with the usual high-pommelled cumbrous saddle, with a great show of useless trappings, and clumsy wooden stirrups, and for a long time I found the riding sufficiently disagreeable, though, doubtless, far more pleasant than a coast journey would have been, with a repetition of the deadly sea-sickness from which I had already suffered so much. ”

“ The same night we had a supper, at which a melancholy species of joviality was in the ascendant, and the next day shook hands and parted. Don Luis went back to his own pleasant home, and Bradley started for San Francisco. As for the others, I hardly know what were their destinations. All I know is, that on waking the next morning, I found that I was alone.
After breakfast I walked about the town. Like San Francisco, Monterey has been nearly deserted. Everybody has gone to the diggings, leaving business, ships, and stores, to take care of themselves. ”

“ That same night I reached the camp of gold-washers, where Lacosse and the trapper had had their horses and packs of provisions stolen from them. The robbery, I believe, was committed by men almost on the verge of want, who thought it a more convenient way of possessing themselves of a stock of provisions than performing a journey to the lower settlements for that purpose would have been, and a cheaper way than purchasing them here, where they run scarce, and where the price of them is exorbitantly high. Other things are in proportion. ”

“ Starting out in all directions from the high grass and underwood, appeared a crowd of squaws with their children, who gave whoop after whoop, and, brandishing boughs of trees, imprecated curses upon the destroyers of their rancheria.
Captain Sutter and his party of trappers were somewhat startled at this proceeding, and the question immediately occurred to them as to where the men could be. The party pushed their way homewards as fast, as possible; leaving the rancheria burning and the squaws and children still yelling and whooping on the island. ”

“ The gold-finders told us that some of them frequently got as much as fifty dollars a-day. As we rode from camp to camp, and saw the hoards of gold—some of it in flakes, but the greater part in a coarse sort of dust—which these people had amassed during the last few weeks, we felt in a perfect fluster of excitement at the sight of the wealth around us. One man showed us four hundred ounces of pure gold dust which he had washed from the dirt in a tin pan, and which he valued at fourteen dollars an ounce. ”

“ We being upon the southern bank of the South Fork, and Weber's Creek running into the North Fork at the north bank, we had to ford both branches of the stream to get to our new station, which we found very productive; the gold being more plentiful than in the lower diggings, and discovered in short veins, and in lumps amongst the rocks of the neighbouring ravines. We should probably not have gone any further than Weber's Creek—I sincerely wish we had not—but a good deal of fever and ague got about. The sun was terribly hot in those deep valleys all day, and the nights chill and damp. ”

“ We were just on the point of returning to the camp to dinner when Dowling, who was standing near some sage bushes at the upper part of the ravine, heard a rustling among them, and on moving in the direction of the noise saw an Indian stealthily creeping along, who, as soon as he perceived he was discovered, discharged an arrow, which just missed its mark, but lacerated, and that rather severely, Dowling's ear. ”

“ There, working amidst the sallow Yankees, with their wide white trousers and straw hats, and the half-naked Indian, may be seen the native-born Californian, with his dusky visage and lustrous black eye, clad in the universal short tight jacket with its lace adornments, and velvet breeches, with a silk sash fastened round his waist, splashing away with his gay deerskin botas in the mudded water. The appearance of the women is graceful and coquettish. ”

“ We were now travelling along the river's banks, and towards evening came in sight of the lower mines, here called the "Mormon" diggings, which occupy a surface of two or three miles along the river. There were something like forty tents scattered up the hill sides, occupied mostly by Americans, some of whom had brought their families with them. Although it was near sundown, everybody was in full occupation. At every few yards there were men, with their naked arms, busily employed in washing out the golden flakes and dust from spadefuls of the auriferous soil. ”

“ In all probability, if we had pursued them to Los Angelos, we should have discovered that they had struck off on to the great Spanish Trail, as was their original intention, or else have found that they had been to Los Angelos and had taken their departure for some other place.
We therefore turned our horses' heads, and retraced our steps towards the coast in no merry mood. We rode along, in fact, in sullen silence, only broken to mutter out our expressions of disappointment at the escape of those who had robbed us of the fruits of so many months of toil, exposure, and hardship. ”

“ It appears, also, that the mines occupy several miles of ground, the gold not being confined to one particular spot. On hearing this intelligence we at once determined to follow Don Luis's example, and although there seemed a certain degree of absurdity in four people, all holding some position in society, going off on what might turn out to be only a fool's errand, still the evidence we had before us, of the gold which had actually been found, and the example of the multitudes who were daily hastening to the diggings, determined us to go with the rest. ”

“ Don Luis supposed that the robbers had seen their approach, and that this, and not the bullet from Bradley's rifle, had been the cause of the scoundrels' precipitate retreat. They found the Indian's horse, to the saddle of which the lasso was attached, quite dead. The Indian himself had managed to crawl off, though doubtless much hurt, as Don Luis saw the horse roll right over him. The body of the robber shot by Bradley was found; life was quite extinct, the ball having passed through his chest in a transverse direction, evidently penetrating the heart. ”

“ I journeyed by slow marches along the banks of the Sacramento, passing several colonies of gold-finders on my way. At noon I halted at one of these, and loitered some little time round about the camp. The rapidly-decaying vegetation—here unusually rank—was producing a malaria, and sickness was doing its ravages; but still the poor infatuated people, or rather such of them as were not prevented by positive inability, worked on until they sunk under the toil. ”

“ The sea-breeze never penetrates here to refresh us, and, except when an occasional squall comes sweeping down from the hills, the air is very oppressive.
We travelled but slowly, still in an hour or so we reached a station, about fifteen miles as the crow flies, or about twenty by the windings of the stream, from the point of its junction with the Americanos, where we determined to try our luck. There was quite a camp here—not to the same extent as the Mormon diggings, but still the washers were numerous, and the larger part of them were Indians. ”

“ Among the clouds of smoke puffed forth by some score of pipes and as many cigarettos, there were to be seen, mingled together, Indians of various degrees of civilisation, and corresponding styles of dress, varying from the solitary cloth kilt to the cotton shirts and jackets and trousers of Russia duck; with groups of trappers from as far up as Oregon, clad in coats of buffalo hide, and with faces and hands so brown and wrinkled that one would take their skins to be as tough as the buffalo's, and almost as indifferent to a lump of lead. ”

“ The camp we had at first taken to be an Indian one, and then one of mountain robbers, was merely that of a few emigrants, who, having crossed the pass in the Sierra Nevada, were, doubtless, on their way to the Sacramento Valley. In all probability, alarmed by the extraordinary affair of last night, they had abandoned their wagons, and sought concealment from the dangers which they imagined surrounded them. We shouted out the words "Friends," "Americans," and other expressions, to give them confidence, if they were within hearing, but we obtained no reply. ”

“ As we were lying down in the shade of the tent yesterday, we were visited by an old trapper called Joe White. He had recognized Bradley and Don Luis, whom he had met on the coast, and we invited him to take coffee with us. Joe White had come into this part of the country with Captain Sutter, whom he spoke very highly of, and of whose early efforts to form a settlement he gave us an account. Their party was the very first of the white settlers in the wilderness. ”

“ May 13.—It is now finally settled that we start off on Wednesday to the Sacramento Valley. To-day, under Bradley's direction, I have bought a good horse, for which I paid only fifteen dollars. It will be very little more expense than hiring a horse of the hotel-master here, besides being far more agreeable to have a horse of one's own; for everybody, the commonest workman even, rides in this country. The gold excitement increases daily, as several fresh arrivals from the mines have been reported at San Francisco. ”

“ The cradle which was worked by Don Luis, Malcolm, and myself, for it was so near the water that three hands were sufficient, had realised six ounces of gold dust; the other, attended to by Bradley, McPhail, Biggs, and Lacosse, had nearly as much. During the day there was another considerable influx of people to the diggings; the banks of the river are therefore getting more and more crowded, and we hear that the price of every article of subsistence is rising in the same proportion. ”

“ The whole valley is dotted over with tents and green bush arbours, and there is hardly a watercourse but which is sprinkled with miners, digging, sifting, and washing. About half of the people work together in companies—the other half shift each for himself. There are hundreds of Indians, many of them fantastically dressed, for they can purchase fine clothing now, even at the extravagant rates at which all articles are charged at Weber's store. They labour one day, and get drunk on pisco or the "strong water" on another. ”