Our scientific machine—the great Virginia Burke rocker—the patent bee-hive, from which we had expected to take every day at least two pounds of the precious comb—was now nothing but so much useless lumber.

Capt. Bill could not bear this unexpected reverse; he had set his heart upon the Burke rocker, and could never descend to the common cradle. Mining with the one was honourable; with the other, base and contemptible. It was as if one should descend from the dignity of a horse and wagon to a hand-cart, or as if the captain of a Liverpool packet should decline into the skipper of a fishing-smack. From this time mining lost its charms, and a favourable opportunity presenting itself about the middle of October, he accepted a situation as clerk in one of the mining districts, at a salary of three hundred dollars a month and his board; thus depriving us, at once and forever, of all that advantage we had hoped to derive from so propitious an alliance. His good fortune excited no envy, for the mines were still untried.

After his departure our little company, now reduced to its original number, was conducted on a different principle, our gains being no longer shared in common. Number Four bought a cradle on his own account, together with a hole, a crowbar, a shovel, and a cheese-box; while Tertium and myself still continued in partnership. We also bought a cradle of sheet-iron, for which we had to pay seventy dollars; and after one or two trials of different localities, we settled down on the same part of the bank where we had made our first experiment with the pan. The bank here as elsewhere was high and steep, consisting of an irregular ledge of soft granite that had been originally covered with a thin coat of soil, but was now, for a width of forty or fifty feet from the water, picked as clean as the bones of a thanksgiving turkey. Owing to this circumstance we seldom remained long in one place; but, like bone and rag-pickers hurrying from one barrel to another, we gleaned a bit here and a bit there, comforting ourselves with the hope of suddenly lighting upon some of those rich deposits of which we had heard such seductive stories, just as the magnanimous gentry last mentioned are forever soothed and excited by a pleasing delusion of silver spoons and gold watches.

So we worked all the rest of the month, making about twenty dollars a day, on the solitary bank of the river, listening soberly to the eternal bass of its waters, and the sharp, sudden crash of some distant rocker keeping faithful time to the beating of its master's heart.

There was then no laughing in California; everybody was terribly in earnest, and a settled look of more than Puritanic severity was in every face. There was such depth of passion that only the fiercest commotion could stir up the bubble laughter from the bottom of the heart; and, for my own part, I seem almost entirely to have lost that human faculty, as if I had tarried too long in the cave of Trephonius.

The extraordinary sickness that prevailed during that season may partially account for this all-pervading austerity; hardly a tent in which there was not one prostrated by scurvy or dysentery—hardly a miner who had not suffered in his own person from one or both of these dreadful diseases. Every one of our own party had been attacked at different times and with different degrees of severity; but I was the most unfortunate. It was several months before I found any relief either from medicine or change in diet, and during the whole of my first year in the mines I was never free from apprehension, the least imprudence being sufficient to bring on a relapse.

We had thus far enjoyed uninterrupted fine weather,—a few drops only of rain had fallen through the whole of October; but November was ushered in under very different conditions. The little party of Bostonians, our next door neighbours, who had been for some time preparing to move into the dry diggings, had hardly stowed the last of their baggage in the wagon, when a sullen shower commenced, that quenched at once their deserted camp-fire, and continued almost without cessation for a whole week. The conical firmament of our tent, usually almost transparent in its brightness, except when fleckered with the dancing shadow of the leaves, now assumed a uniform, leaden and opaque hue, corresponding to the lowering character of the sky. Heavy drops collected on the inside, and, rolling half-way down, fell maliciously on our heads. Sitting on our low bedsteads, with knees drawn up to the chin, we shrank into the smallest possible compass; while we found a whimsical amusement in wondering where the next drop would fall, and in rallying each other on our involuntary contortions. Mowbray, and a Dr. Collyer, with whom we had been some time acquainted, were now almost our only visitors. The latter, a middle-aged man, of a peculiarly sour and morose temper, seemed to find no employment so congenial as grumbling, and the subjects on which he most delighted to expatiate were California and the Burke rocker.

"Well, gentlemen," he would exclaim, with nasal bitterness, "California is a miserable country, a very poor country; it is as much as a man's life is worth to remain here through the winter;" and then, like Sairy Gamp, to give greater emphasis to his words, he would reverse the objurgatory phrase till he had run it through all its changes, while we, in our feeble way, echoed assent to every one of his propositions, glad to find one who understood so thoroughly the true merits of the question.

Mowbray, on the other hand, never very talkative or vivacious, and now doubly oppressed by the untoward aspect of the weather and the uncertainty of his future movements, hardly spoke except in monosyllables.

Cooking, in such weather, was plainly impossible; and the ship-bread and molasses to which we were consequently reduced, were never very thankfully received. Once, indeed, during a brief lull in the storm, I ventured out, and succeeded in boiling a pot of coffee and in frying a little pork, and these two smoking dishes somewhat dispelled the chill that was creeping over us.

The fifth night the storm increased. The wind blew with fearful violence, and drove the rain in sheets through that side of the tent most exposed to its fury. Tertium was awakened by a choking sensation, and found himself lying with his face in a puddle of water almost deep enough to drown him. On my side it was rather better; my outer blankets were thoroughly saturated, but the inner one still remained tolerably dry.

The tent writhed and struggled with the tempest. The fastenings on one side at length gave out, and as it flapped its wet and clinging folds about our faces, we expected every moment to hear it fly bodily away, leaving us entirely exposed to the pelting of the pitiless storm. 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 green of the shooting grass, were far more suggestive of May than of November.

The fine weather, however, brought with it one disagreeable necessity—that of working without knowing where we could do it to advantage. There were, indeed, plenty of places where we could make five dollars a day, but we were not yet, thank heaven, reduced to that extremity. We had sunk our expectations from thousands to hundreds, and were willing to work for any reasonable compensation; but there was a point at which such poverty of spirit ceased to be a virtue. We were confirmed in this lofty temper by hopes of what we would do in the spring. There were other rivers not yet so completely turned over as the South Fork, and other places not so entirely worn out as Mormon Island; we would be among the first to force our way into these new diggings, when we should easily make up for all we had lost.

In the meantime the best thing we could do was to make ourselves as comfortable as possible; and our late experience had shown that to this end nothing was so essential as a fire in rainy weather. Our neighbours had generally effected this by building a heavy chimney of stones and earth against one side of their tents; but, aside from the difficulty of such an undertaking, the quantity of fuel that would be thus required was a very serious objection. We thought ourselves, therefore, very fortunate in obtaining a small sheet-iron stove of the rudest construction, that had been manufactured the preceding year for a trader in the village, for the very moderate sum of two hundred and eighty dollars. On bringing it home, we found no room for it in the tent, except just within the door, where it stood like a sturdy little three-legged Dutchman, valiantly presenting its gaping blunderbuss of a funnel in the very face and eyes of the audacious intruder, who verily thought that if he escaped being blown to pieces, he should infallibly be suffocated by its pestilent fumes. To tell the truth, however, greater part of the smoke made its way directly back into the tent, when it seemed to find huge delight in circling round a hornet's nest in the very summit of the sugar-loaf, and to wonder strangely that it could not get out; till Tertium happily conceived the idea of fitting an old boot bereft of its toe, on to the other end of the funnel, after which the smoke found no difficulty in walking in a different direction.

Mowbray having determined to leave the mines, we seized the opportunity of laying in a stock of winter provisions. We bought half a barrel of sour flour, the same quantity of syrup, of sugar and salt pork, together with half-a-dozen Dutch cheeses, as many boxes of sardines, fifty pounds of soda crackers, and a variety of smaller articles.

All this wealth added to what we had before, rendered a larger tent indispensable; and as we could find none for sale in the vicinity, I went with Number Four to examine one belonging to a man on the North Fork.

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.

Our course led us first a mile down the South Fork to where it unites with the North to form the American river; crossing the boiling current in a dug-out, we ascended the steep-hill on the other side, and walking a few rods up the North Fork, came to the store where our old friend Capt. Bill was clerk. It was a log-house, long and low, and divided into two apartments, one of which served for the store, and the other for a dining-room. A large number of miners were at work in the neighbourhood, and some of them boarded at this establishment; which thus united the dignity of a grocery or variety store to that of a village tavern.

The salutations and inquiries usual on such occasions were followed by the never-failing invitation, "Well, boys, what 'ill you take to drink?" and an enumeration of all the various liquors supposed to be suited to our different palates.

We had not then, however, been long enough in the country to accommodate ourselves to this fashion; and soon after, continuing our walk, we came in a few minutes to the tent of which we were in search. Finding it to our liking, we weighed out two-and-a-half ounces, and at once set out on our return, with the tent on our shoulders, stopping every now and then to call each other's attention to some prospect of unusual beauty—to the hares and squirrels that sported carelessly among the rocks—or to the striped acorns that covered the ground almost as long and taper as a lady's finger.

The next day, in spite of the threatening sky, we went to prospect some ravines four miles from the island on the Sacramento road. Dr. Collyer had already moved to this locality and had promised to send us word if he found it favourable for mining; but as we heard nothing from him, we determined to make a personal examination. The walk, though totally unlike that of the day before, was in some respects even more agreeable. Far to the left a range of low hills seemed to hold up the sky, while the leaden clouds, oozing down between, communicated their own dark mysterious hue to the softened slopes and winding valleys.

On arriving at his tent, which was pitched in a very damp, unwholesome ravine, we found the doctor was not at home; but keeping on from one gulch to another we at last spied his hat just dodging behind a bank of earth in which he was at work. He seemed far more surprised than pleased at our sudden advent, and after a few moments' conversation, suddenly jerking out his watch, exclaimed, "Well, it's nearly twelve, and I must be going home to dinner; good morning, gentlemen," and away he hurried, leaving us divided between laughter and indignation; but inwardly resolving that it must be a very bad conscience indeed that could put a watch a whole hour out of the way. After his unceremonious departure we continued to prospect the ravines in the neighbourhood, but found none worth coming so far to seek. There was very little water running in any of them, and the two or three miners we saw at work were obliged to use the same scanty supply till it became too muddy to answer the purpose.

We spent the next three or four days in putting up our new tent and arranging the furniture within; for, as we expected to remain here several months, we did everything in the most substantial manner. The tent itself was nearly square, being twelve feet wide and fifteen feet long. Near the two sides, which were about three feet in height, we set several thick posts with stout crotches at the top, and laid in these heavy logs to which we secured the ropes that served to stretch the roof. As the tent was made of cotton drilling which we had already found insufficient to keep out the rain, we bought cloth enough to make a second roof, called a fly, which we stretched over the first, leaving a space of several inches between. The ridgepole, which was formed of the spouts belonging to the Burke rocker, and projected at each end beyond the roof, was supported by the tall stumps of two oaks we had cut off for the purpose, and was also strengthened in the middle by a pole passing through the centre of our little table. The whole was surrounded on every side but one by a thick array of branches, like a chevaux-de-frize, that broke the force of the wind, and imparted an appearance of great snugness and security.

The stove thrust its pipe out of one of the gables, just at the left of the door, and smoked away right lustily, day and night, as if conscious that a good deal depended upon its vigilance and fidelity. Altogether our new abode was of a very picturesque character, and I doubt not that many a humdrum citizen, yawning fearfully in his luxurious apartments, would consider it a very desirable residence—for a single day.

The interior was fitted up in a style of corresponding simplicity and elegance. A dry-goods' box that stood on end between the door and stove, and did duty as a sideboard, seemed to give an air of dignity and refinement to the apartment. It may not be in very good taste to parade the price of one's furniture; but as I know that many, at the present day especially, are apt to be curious in such matters, I will simply mention that our sideboard, though of pine, could not have been bought for less than fifty dollars.

Half a dozen tin plates and dippers—we could have had gold if we had pleased, but that was too common—two or three pans and pewter mugs—a large tin pail for making soup—a frying pan and coffee-pot, together with a squad of battered boxes that had once contained sardines or preserved meats, composed the list of our culinary utensils.

We had been sometime seeking to add a stewpan to our possessions, and meeting one day a party who were about leaving the mines, we inquired if they had such an article to dispose of. In reply they introduced us to a coffee-pot as tall as a two-year-old infant, and lifting the lid, Number Four peered curiously down into the capacious interior, as into the crater of an extinct volcano. It was a perfect geological curiosity. Beef, pork, beans, rice, potatoes, and onions, lying in distinct strata, or mingled into a dense conglomerate, rose half way to the top, while a faint and steamy odour from all these various ingredients drove us back as from the witches' cauldron.

At the foot of one of our beds and in the centre of the tent, stood the table—a few boards laid on the top of a flour barrel; the corner behind the door was used as a store room for our provisions, while all the remaining space was occupied by our beds. These were framed of sticks and grapevines, and covered, instead of a mattrass, with grass and moss; we carpeted the floor with the same material, and then, having exhausted our ingenuity, had nothing left to do but run in and out, and admire our own handiwork.

Many trifling improvements were subsequently added during the tiresome monotony of stormy weather. Tertium fitted the sideboard with shelves and a swinging door, and paved the space around the stove with smooth stones. He contrived a fastening for the door so artfully that he could not open it himself in less than half an hour, and even carried his ingenuity so far as to make a pair of bellows that blew equally well on all sides at once. I succeeded in manufacturing a pair of tongs out of an iron hoop, and then undertook to build an oven, but desisted after labouring at it several weeks, by which time it bid fair to rival the biggest of the Egyptian pyramids.

Thanksgiving came as usual, and found us still in the bustle of house-building, but as we had been invited to dine out, we did not intermit our labours till noon, when we dressed ourselves in our cleanest shirts, and walked over to our entertainers.

The party to which we would now introduce the reader had been some time our nearest neighbours, and since the departure of all our other acquaintance, we had contracted a sudden intimacy which afterwards ripened, with one of them at least, into a lasting friendship.

Colonel Oldbuck, the eldest of the party, was a man of about the middle size, with a neck much too large and long for his body, and which seemed to have bulged out a little at the top in order to form a head. He had a narrow rounded forehead, thick features, and a bilious complexion. His voice was very agreeable, and like his walk, slow and measured. Even when in a passion, and he was a very choleric individual, he never lost this advantage, and would bespatter his adversary with all the unsavoury epithets at his call without rising for a moment above the imposing barrytone of his ordinary conversation. The same peculiarity was discovered in the self-sufficiency that was his most notable characteristic. His conceit was none of your vulgar blustering sort, clamorously betraying its own weakness, but, on the contrary, it was exceedingly quiet and genteel, and if it is not a contradiction, modest and unassuming. It was undoubtedly this very thing that made it so effective. It came upon you before you were aware—it aroused no opposition—excited no suspicion. A nearer acquaintance discovered that in spite of this seeming moderation, it was really most grasping and comprehensive. Nothing was too high for it, or too low—it pervaded his whole being, and seemed to envelope him, wherever he went, like a cloud.

At home he had been a man of very extensive influence, and the scene that was enacted at his departure somewhat resembled the parting of Washington and his army. The tears which were shed on that occasion, as a distinguished orator observed, after falling and watering the earth, ascended magnanimously and triumphantly into the firmament, when they marshalled themselves into a cloud that should accompany their hero in all his wanderings.

Though only a farmer and country trader, the redoubtable Oldbuck had, by sheer force of genius, attained the office of Justice of the Peace—Colonel in the state militia, and others equally responsible. No one could read the Declaration of Independence so touchingly as he, or was so popular an orator at cattle shows and country fairs. His fellow-citizens were even now impatiently awaiting his return that they might hear from his lips how much to believe of that mighty humbug that was now convulsing the whole world. He had distinguished himself no less in his military capacity. We listened to his simple, unpretending narrative of his heroic exploits with thrilling interest, and each in his heart wished that heaven had made him such a man, when we saw in fancy, the keen edge of his ruthless sword describing a horrid circle in the air, and then, at one tremendous blow, cutting in twain the unhappy watermelon, if it should not rather be considered happy in so glorious a death—held meanwhile between the hands of one of his compeers. This performance was a happy union of the achievements of both Richard and Saladin, demanding for its successful execution, the ponderous strength of the one, and marvellous sleight of hand of the other; and it carried me back to the chivalrous times of those glorious old Knickerbockers, who erewhile waged such doubtful war with those pestilent pumpkins.

The same noble ambition that had carried our hero to such heights of fame at home still burned in his heart, inciting him to gain fresh laurels in this new field of action. During his stay at Mormon Island an election was held for alcalde, and by the advice, or, as he would say, the urgent entreaty of many of his friends, the Colonel proposed himself as a candidate. But though he arrayed himself for the occasion in an imposing suit, consisting of a blue jacket that came half-way up to his shoulders, and a pair of tight trowsers that came half-way up to his knees, and in this guise walked up and down before the crowd of admiring fellow-citizens assembled at the polls, he, for some reason I could never fathom, failed to produce his wonted impression; and the office, to his infinite mortification, was given to another.

In addition to his other good qualities, Colonel Oldbuck was an excellent mimic—told a good story, with broad Dutch humour—and was in fact a very entertaining companion. He occupied the post of honour at our little table.

Crowded up into one corner of the tent—his corner—sat a shy, quiet Scotchman, who read incessantly, except when working and sleeping, and lived in a perpetual atmosphere of snuff.

The third, and much the youngest of the party, was a little doctor, who signed his name with a vanity to be pardoned in no one else, C. Fox Browne. As doctors were plenty in California, and we ourselves became acquainted with no less than four bearing this ancient and honourable cognomen, some such distinction seemed necessary. But among his friends our doctor needed no such meretricious addition; his plain Charles Browne was better than the tandem titles of the most name-tormenting pedigree.

Any one, on slight acquaintance, might have been inclined to charge him with vanity. But if so, vanity with him was elevated and ennobled into a virtue. No one could possibly object to it, or wish it had been less. One might as well wish that he had been less disinterested or good-natured. But what these careless observers would call vanity was really a very different quality. It was simply a disposition to be easily pleased, and to look on the bright side of our cloddish humanity. Vanity begins and ends at home; it is essentially egotistical, and must finally refer everything to self. It comes from the company of its own swollen imaginations, like Gulliver from among the Brobdingnags, and in the same way looks on common men as dwarfs. But our doctor's complacency was of the most catholic nature. It made no invidious comparisons; if he thought highly of himself, he had even a better opinion of others, and his eyes were as blind to their faults and open to their virtues as to his own.

Oldbuck, who could never bear the least approach to a jest at his own expense, was continually making game of his companion. "Browne—he did this or that," was his favourite exordium on such occasions; and his eye would begin to twinkle, and his mouth to twitch, as premonitory symptoms of the low, hearty chuckle that was sure to follow, while the doctor seemed to enjoy the whole thing as much as any of us.

These three were now the solitary remnant of a party that had originally consisted of forty members. Half only, however, came to California, to encounter the perils and hardships of the mines; while the others paid all the expenses of the expedition, and sat secure at home. They had brought with them various improved and scientific machines, and among them one for dredging in the bottom of the rivers, of which they seemed to have formed the same idea as myself. Assuming as a basis the accounts that had reached home of the wealth of California, they had sat down, coolly and deliberately, with pen and paper, to calculate the profits they might safely expect from two years' labour. The result at which they arrived was every way pleasing and satisfactory; indeed, so much so that even their inflated imaginations were unable to receive it in all its vast proportions. They accordingly went over the work again with an excess of caution deserving the highest credit, and finding all correct, gradually settled down into the comfortable belief that at the end of two years they would each be worth just half a million.

Dr. Browne's whole time was to be occupied in amalgamating and weighing the gold; and, if practicable, casting it into ingots. Murray, the quiet Scotchman, had brought with him twelve tin boxes, each containing a quart of snuff; and he confidently expected, as fast as they were emptied, to fill them with another dust yet more precious and titillating. When I heard this story of their magnificent conceptions, I felt vexed and ashamed at my own comparatively grovelling notions; for it certainly must have been a fine thing to believe oneself, for ever so short a time, the possessor of such a princely fortune, and thus familiarize the mind to these ennobling contemplations. One could hardly fail to think and speak more loftily for it all his life, as the humblest individual who should become a lord or a king, even for a single day, could never lose the smack of greatness thus acquired.

Dinner was waiting when we entered, and we at once took our places, without loss of time in idle ceremony. A sailor's chest, covered with a real table-cloth, and raised to a convenient elevation by two low boxes, formed a very commodious table, the difficulty we experienced in disposing of our legs, and which compelled us to lean gracefully forward at an angle of forty-five degrees, being the only material objection. And this trifling annoyance was soon forgotten at sight of the truly royal banquet prepared by our munificent entertainers, and which I will describe at greater length, to remove, if possible, an odious impression, as I fear too generally prevalent, that the California miner absolutely eats nothing but pork and flapjacks.

The great advantages secured by division of labour were here apparent. Instead of each member of the company taking his turn, day by day or week by week, in performing all the culinary operations, as was the usual custom, each one had exclusive charge of some particular department. Oldbuck superintended the meats, the bread and pastry were confided to the doctor, while Murray, being only a noviciate and as yet unequal to the higher branches, was serving an apprenticeship at washing the dishes.

As might have been expected from so judicious an arrangement, everything was excellent and in perfect keeping. The first course consisted of boiled ham, roast venison, a venison stew or pasty (Friar Tuck's was not half so good, though, I take it, the best pasty in the world), and potatoes at a dollar a pound. After we had done ample justice to each of these dishes, and washed them down with a brimming cup of coffee, the plates—real china, by the way—were removed and expeditiously rinsed outside the tent by Murray, while we testified our growing complacency by a between-course of jests and sly allusions to the decidedly aristocratic pretensions of the colonel's establishment. The second course consisted of a huge platter of molasses gingerbread and indisputable peach-pie, accompanied by two bottles of wine; but where they came from, whether from Madeira or Kamtschatka, is beyond my conjecture. Colonel Oldbuck fidgetted a little at this unexpected apparition, for he was a teetotaller, and carried his principles with him to California, and, what is more, kept them there—an example that the great Kneel Down himself might have found it hard to follow.

Songs and stories now succeeded. "The youngest gentleman in company blew his melancholy into a flute," and fortunately managed also to blow considerable out of it, and about four o'clock we rose from table highly gratified with our first Thanksgiving in the mines.