The next day was our first Sunday in the mines. It had not come any too soon. Through the long sultry hours I lay stretched on my blankets, watching the coquettish play of the leaves drawn on the camera obscura of our canvass walls, and dreaming, oh! how dreamily! of all we had left behind. At noon, Number Four made his appearance, not at all fatigued by his journey; and, as it was probable that we should now remain some time at Mormon Island, we determined to remove to a pleasanter locality. We selected for this purpose the hill on which the second scientific miner and his party had pitched their tent, and by Monday night were snugly settled in our new quarters.

Having, as before, hung our tent on the north side of an evergreen oak, we strewed the floor with pine twigs, and a species of coarse hummocky grass that grew in great abundance on the rocky hill sides. Our narrow bedsteads, hastily constructed of rough poles, resting on low crotches driven into the ground, were made to fit into the circumference of the tent, so that I could only sleep on my right side, and Tertium could only sleep on his left, and there was no turning over except by changing beds. A barrel of biscuit, a half barrel of sugar, together with sundry bags of beans, and rice, and pork, filled all the centre of the tent, leaving only room enough to get in and out.

The hill, on which we had thus encamped, and where we remained several months, rose directly from the river, and was agreeably shaded by white and evergreen oaks, not standing close together or in clumps, but at almost as regular intervals as the trees in an orchard, which at a short distance they closely resembled. In front, looking down the river, and towards the sunsetting, was the sleepy little village, with its scattering suburbs of tents, peeping out among the hills, and now and then, a heavy baggage-wagon, attended by a party of impatient miners, slowly creeping down the Sacramento road beyond—the river more to the right winding round the rocky island, swarming with men like a great ant-hill—and, far beyond all, and forming a fitting back-ground to the picture, a hill of surpassing beauty, rising in successive terraces, as sharp and regular as if formed by art, to a height of several hundred feet.

Five or six parties were encamped in our neighbourhood, and on the summit of the hill, a hundred yards behind us, was a large tent, occupied as a store by the same enterprising individual to whom we had sold our tinware at Sacramento.

Tuesday, the Captain and Number Four were employed by the second scientific miner in working his machine, for which they received the usual wages, eight dollars a day, and also acquired some knowledge of its operation. At the same time, as Tertium and I did not wish to be idle, and had not yet obtained a rocker, we set to work on the river bank with pans, modestly limiting our expectations to an ounce a piece.

Panning is to the beginner a very curious and mysterious operation. An old miner had initiated my brother in the process, and he now gave me the result of his experience. "You must do so, and so, and so," said he, suiting the action to the word. I accordingly did as I was told, shaking and whirling, and dipping with all my might, though with a strange mixture of faith and unbelief as to the result.

There was nothing in the appearance of the earth to distinguish it from what I had seen a thousand times at home. It was simply a mass of sand, and stones, and gravel, such as is often found on our sea-shores, and in the beds or along the banks of our more rapid rivers. Yet this was the earth I had come twenty thousand miles to seek, and in that earth, unnoticed among the baser substances, but worth more than all of them, there lurked, so I was told, and so I partly believed, divers grains of gold.

While I thus wondered, I had gradually thrown out the lighter sand and gravel, but a portion of black sand still remained; and now, as with gentle violence I sank the edge of the pan beneath the surface, the inrushing water brought to view a few brighter grains contrasted, and in appearance multiplied by this intimate mingling with their sooty brethren. Good! I said, there must be at least two dollars; but when the black sand was all floated out by the dipping process just mentioned, I found, to my great mortification, that there was not more than twenty-five cents.

That part of the bank which we had selected had already been once dug over, and most of its riches abstracted; but as the first miners had done their work in a careless and slovenly manner, contenting themselves, as I had thought to do, not indeed with the biggest lumps, but with the richest portions, they had left numerous little patches scattered among and under the rocks that afforded very good pickings to their successors. Our labour was not, however, in this instance very profitable; we made only three dollars, and were glad the next day to change our employment.

Number Four set out on an expedition of inquiry among the miners on the North Fork,—Tertium took his place at the Virginia rocker—and I was engaged to assist as a journeyman carpenter in putting up a small iron house belonging to a Mr. Mowbray, who had lately arrived in the diggings in such style as to produce an immense sensation.

He was a young man of good family and rather genteel figure—rich and well educated—understood thoroughly the art of spending money, but had probably never earned a dollar in his life. Tired at length of this barren inactivity, and seized with a dreamy ambition to do something in the world, he had pitched upon California as a suitable field for his first essay. His plan of operations was equally bold and ingenious; he determined to conquer nature, and transport the comforts of civilization into her rude and rugged fastnesses. He had no objection to the romance and excitement of a miner's life, but he would have none of its accompanying hardships.

Naturalists have described a species of spider that, in order to gratify its amphibious propensity, makes a diving bell of bubble, and dwells in this palace of light secure beneath the waters. So Mowbray plunging into an unaccustomed element, still carried about him his bubble of old associations. In spite of the seeming greatness of the change, his atmosphere was still the same; his nature had undergone no transformation, and he walked now over the hills of California as formerly along the pavements of Broadway. Others might sleep on the ground, and live on pork and flapjacks, but he would sleep softly and fare luxuriantly—they might toil for an ounce a day, he sought no lesser game than thousands.

And if the most lavish expenditure of money had been all that was wanting, his success would have been placed beyond all doubt. During the three months of preparation previous to his departure, he had forgotten nothing, however trifling, necessary to his undertaking.

You would have thought him a second Robinson Crusoe about to embark voluntarily for his desert island. First and foremost came a chest of tools, though I grievously fear that our dainty crusader could hardly have told a chisel from a handsaw. But then, fortunately, he had a scientific dictionary in two fat volumes, from which he could easily obtain the necessary information. Next there was a horse-power, a heavy mass of iron-wheels, so called, I suppose, because nobody but a horse could move it—india-rubber pontoons, looking marvellously like the skin of a huge black snake—a large tent of the same material to use in prospecting—together with a whole army of picks and shovels, to look at which you would suppose our hero had as many arms as Briareus.

He had, too, a most knowing belly, and one that evidently abhorred a vacuum as much as Dame Nature herself. According to the strictest calculation, and assuming as a standard the most primitive of all measures, the capacity of the respectable functionary mentioned in the first line of this paragraph, there was of sugar, three hundred and fifty—of Stewart's syrup, ditto—of cheese, sixty—of flour, eight hundred—of tea and coffee, a thousand—of spices, pickles, preserves, &c., six hundred—of pork, two hundred—and of beans, horresco referens, not one.

These various luxuries, together with the house already mentioned, and more than all, two mahogany bedsteads with mattrass and pillow, excited the unqualified admiration of less fortunate or less sagacious adventurers.

Certain sturdy miners indeed, who could carry all they owned upon their backs, shrugged their shoulders at all this, and even laughed outright at the mahogany bedsteads; but they were poor creatures who could never by any possibility be made to appreciate an enterprise conducted with such liberality and magnificence.

To supply his own want of practical knowledge, and thus make assurance doubly sure, Mowbray had brought with him a companion of a very different temper, and who seemed by his habits and education fitted to make as useful an ally as the simple-hearted Friday; that most delectable of blacks till Uncle Tom came to divide our sympathies. The idea was a good one, but his selection was unfortunate. Our Friday was a genuine cockney, who had never been out of the sound of Bow-bells, or out of sight of St. Paul's. He had lived, to be sure, several years in the United States, and professed to entertain the highest admiration of our institutions, but had not really gained a new idea. Indeed, he was not a man of ideas, but of education, or, to speak more accurately, of instruction, and had no more to do with the formation of his own mind than an india-rubber shoe has with that of the mould that shapes it. He was obsequious to a fault, and even slavish in his dependence, so that, as Capt. Bill observed, one wanted to kick him for his humility. He had neither the versatility of a Yankee, or of a cat in his composition—he could "make the thing, but not the machine that makes it,"—and every sudden emergency took him entirely by surprise. In the hands of a master he would undoubtedly have made an efficient instrument, but in the hands of Mowbray he was worse than useless.

It was to assist this character in erecting his house, that I was now employed by Mowbray, who was himself suffering from dysentery, and therefore unable to attend to it in person. The frame, which was only ten feet by twelve, had been prepared under Friday's supervision; yet the work had been done in such a bungling manner, that we were three whole days in putting it together and fitting in the iron sheets that formed the walls. When all was done, however, a very comfortable house was the result, presenting in its air of snugness and security, a marked contrast to the loose open tents by which it was surrounded. Mowbray at once took possession, and assumed, by tacit consent of the pork-and-flapjack democracy about him, some such state and dignity as usually attaches to the great house of a country village.

Number Four returned on Friday; he had seen a number of our old shipmates, who were mining on the North Fork, but though they were generally doing better than with us, the advantage was too slight to counterbalance the evils of a removal, and we accordingly made up our minds to remain where we were.

The next Tuesday, which was the second of October, the long-looked for machine for which we had finally bargained with the scientific miner, made its appearance in an oblong box somewhat bigger than a coffin. The omen was unfortunate, but in our infatuation we disregarded every warning and rushed blindly on our fate. We found the difficulty of putting the parts together greatly increased by the carelessness of the construction and the improper nature of the materials; and our vexation at this delay received a fresh accession every time we compared the exorbitant price of the machine with its actual value. Besides, we had insensibly come to regard the unwieldy monster with doubt, if not with absolute aversion. I can not explain now any more than I could then the sort of somnambulic process by which we had arrived at this state of unbelief, but in some way the conviction had been forcing itself upon us that neither the Virginia rocker, nor California itself, were all we had so fondly imagined. We had not yielded even so much as this without a struggle; machines of a very similar construction were already at work on the island and their owners were by no means getting rich, but then, as the second scientific miner said, they were not exactly the same, and on this apparently unimportant distinction depended the very secret of success. There was one, however, exactly the same, but it had not been thoroughly tried. Old miners smiled significantly at us as they passed, and sneered at the company's expectations. But it was only envy. Thus we disputed every inch of ground, still hoping against hope, when our best friend would have been a wise despair.

The whole week was consumed in various operations. After putting together the machine, and the heavy frame on which it rested, we erected a stout scaffold ten feet high to support the pump and the man who worked it, and who was thus raised to a very doubtful dignity above his fellows. Spouts were also required to convey the water from the pump to the rocker, and to make these we cut up the coffin already mentioned, into long strips three or four inches wide. In all this it is but fair to mention that we derived great advantage from the chest of tools possessed by our friend Mowbray.

In the meantime we had bought for fifty dollars a claim on the island, abandoning one that we already held, and which afterwards proved by far the more valuable; and the first of the week, everything being in readiness, Tertium mounted the scaffold—Number Four took his station at the handle of the rocker—I assumed the responsible office of feeder—and our two hired men, Capt. Bill being sick with dysentery, were appointed hod carriers; the said hod being a large half-barrel slung between two poles, and weighing, when full of earth, about as much as three barrels of flour.

And now began the hardest labour I ever encountered—such labour as that must be, when man is yoked, as it were, together with a lifeless piece of mechanism, and compelled to keep time to its undeviating regularity. Having once started there was no cessation—the rocker must rock—the pumper must pump—and the digger must dig, as if life depended upon their exertions,—the only rest was by change of labour. As one hand left the handle of the machine, another slid into its place—the one at the pump could not vacate his high office until his successor had already mounted the scaffold, and the diggers must keep ahead of us all.

"More dirt, more dirt," cries the feeder, and the next moment two slender figures are seen rounding the corner of the hole, and tottering, staggering, half running, half walking under their awkward burden. Their poor legs, fit only for counter-jumping, seem fairly to bend and buckle like a whalebone, as they slip and stumble over the uneven path, and their faces, like our own, shrivel under the fire that streams from the burning sun above, and burning stones below.

We rested three hours at noon, and finished our day's work of ten hours about seven. And now for the gold!—a hundred hods of earth had passed through the machine, and out of that quantity it should have digested at least a hundred dollars. We should not wonder if there were two hundred, but should feel satisfied, as it was the first day, with only one. We gathered round, we three, and put our heads together over the trough, now drawn part way out of its place, while our hired men peeped respectfully over our shoulders.

Tipping the rocker first to one side, and then gently reversing the position, the pure liquid quicksilver ran rapidly across the bottom, while the amalgam lingered behind. Number Four scraped it up with his fingers, and having squeezed and moulded it in his hand, disclosed to our view a lump about as big as a bullet, and worth three or four dollars.

On further examination we found that several pounds of quicksilver had escaped from the rocker; and as this was worth quite as much as the gold we had obtained, our first day's labour left us just one ounce in debt. None but an Irishman could get rich in this way, so we betook ourselves at once for consolation to the second scientific miner, who somewhat reassured us by saying that it was no more than was to be expected; that it required thirty or forty dollars to saturate the quicksilver, which it seemed would do nothing until it had gorged itself to repletion, and that the next day we should do better. He also sent one of his company, a young gentleman who, either because he had very long legs, or a good deal of whisker, and that sort of nobility, was called Count Eggenheim, to discover the secret of our losing so much quicksilver. The Count directed us to set the rocker steeper, and rock more rapidly, seventy beats to a minute: and these various alterations effected such an improvement that we made the next day twenty dollars. But I will not weary the reader with a more continued detail; at the end of five days, after paying for our hole and hired labour, we had left just fifty cents apiece; and though Capt. Bill still retained something of his early predilection for our patent bee-hive, the rest of the party were so opposed to giving it any further trial, that the whole scheme was then and there abandoned.

Subsequent observation convinced us that we were right in our decision, and that the Virginia rocker, so far from being what it had been represented, was in no respect superior to the common cradle, while its great size and weight were very serious objections. With the cradle the miner was perfectly independent—he moved from one spot to another at pleasure, and washed only the richer portions. The Virginia rocker, on the other hand, was comparatively a fixture, and to move it even a short distance so arduous an operation that it was avoided as long as possible.

It will be recollected that the first scientific miner, among other arguments in favour of this machine, had stated that the hemispherical cakes which he exhibited had been obtained from earth that had already been through the common cradle. We now learned in what sense these words were to be understood; a miner who had been at work on the island all the time the company had their machine in operation, assured us that several small rockers were in use at the same time, and that their contents had been twice a day passed through the Virginia rocker for the purpose of separating the black sand and gold by amalgamation. So in the famous partnership between the dwarf and the giant, the giant carried off all the glory from his humble companion—so in a nest, the big glutton starves his weaker brethren, and so always the rich absorbs the profit for which the poor man sweats.

But it was a comfort to know that, after all, the scientific miner had told nothing but the truth, though his distance from the scene of operations and his scientific method of viewing matters had kept him in ignorance of some important particulars. The company of which he was chief proved their own faith in the machines by subsequently setting up ten of them on the island in a single body; water was brought on in a flood by means of a trough several hundred feet long, and a waterwheel erected at an expense of three or four thousand dollars, to rock the machines, though the same labour could have been performed far better and cheaper by hand. Their whole object seemed to be to wash as much earth as possible, or rather to force it through the rocker. They worked in this distracted manner only a short time when the rainy season set in, their waterwheel was washed away—the company was dispersed, their state and magnificence forgotten, and all their thousand machines might have been bought for a song.

Mowbray had watched the progress of their experiment with intense solicitude, either because he was a silent partner in the concern, or because he intended, if they were successful, to make his fortune in the same way.

About this time he bought a pair of mules and a large wagon, and filling it with stores set out on a prospecting expedition through the northern mines, accompanied by his trusty body-servant Friday. 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. He returned in a few weeks with an account of a rich bar he had visited on the Yuba, where claims had been offered him at a price so monstrous that they must needs be of extraordinary value. Nothing, however, could be done till spring, and in the meantime he thought he should find the south of California or the Sandwich Islands a much more agreeable residence than the mines. He accordingly sold his house, his mules, his provisions, and everything else for which he could find a purchaser, and turned his back on the mines, I believe for ever. Overwhelming as was the contrast between the beginning and the end of his adventures, he would yet have been, if he had succeeded, even more remarkable, and almost the only one of his class. The respectable Busby's sarcastic depreciation of educated men found but too many striking instances in California. Of all with whom I became acquainted, I remember only one or two who were finally successful in mining; they either never made anything, or were sure to throw it away on some monstrous project that would never have occurred to any one else.

To return from this digression, which has led us several weeks in advance of our story. Our party was not the only one that had stumbled over the Virginia rocker. It had found its way into all parts of the mines; Capt. Fayreweather, at Coloma, though already provided with the most ingenious invention of his wary Nantucketer, had wasted time and money on this more pretentious novelty; and in our own neighbourhood several parties had discarded it, as we had done, after a longer or shorter trial.

A small company of Bostonians, who had pitched their tent just in front of our door, and afterwards assisted in working our machine, were among the most unfortunate. They, too, had been so happy as to make the acquaintance of the scientific miner; and it so happened, oddly enough, that their energy and intelligence had also excited his admiration. They had bought the machine, and in their anxiety to secure so invaluable a treasure, had actually paid for it in advance; and furthermore, sent one of their number on to Mormon Island to select a favourable spot for its operation. He remained at the island several weeks, boarding at an expense of three dollars a day, and when his companions arrived, led them triumphantly to the claim he had so vigilantly maintained. But as, unfortunately, he had not thought it necessary to make any comparative trial of its value, contenting himself with washing a few pansful a day in order to hold possession, the claim turned out to be good for nothing; while twenty others that had been subsequently appropriated were paying very handsome dividends. They continued, however, to work their machine for more than a month, but finally abandoned it, as we had done, though, as might have been expected, with yet greater reluctance.

A little incident that occurred while we were yet at work on the island, will admirably illustrate the strange vicissitudes of California adventure.

Three men who left home after we did, but had been in the mines long enough to make their piles, and were now returning, stopped a moment on their way to visit the island. While they stood observing our operations with complacent curiosity, a second party approached, among whom they recognised several of their acquaintance who had left home in the same ship with themselves, but had been delayed, they knew not how long, on the isthmus. They had, in fact, just arrived, and were now anxiously inquiring where they could find the best diggings. Their more fortunate associates, with a disinterested benevolence that did them infinite credit, gave them all the information in their power, and even described minutely the very spot where they themselves had taken out their thousands, whereby the others could not help being greatly comforted and encouraged.

As they turned away, "Ah," sighed Number Four, who, like myself, had dabbled a little in Spanish, "Ah, lo que es el mundo!" while Tertium hummed,