About the middle of December, Number Four obtained a situation as clerk in the store already mentioned, on the hill behind our tent; but, as he still continued to live with us, this step produced but little change in our household economy.

According to our calculations, it now rained about one-third of the time, though Colonel Oldbuck insisted that the proportion was at least one-half. The river, like all mountain streams, generally rose with great rapidity, and we were not always prepared for these sudden freshets. Going early one morning, after a gentle rain that had fallen interruptedly for several days, to look after our rocker, I found the spot where we had left it, deep under water, while the river, now swollen to a frightful extent, was fretting itself furiously against the jutting rocks that formed its banks. Hundreds of rockers were swept away, and one man below the island took out forty that had found a harbour in an eddy near which he was at work. Our own, though of iron, was forced to the surface by the violence of the current, and lodged against a snag not far below; but the unconscionable wreckers that saved it charged us an ounce for salvage.

As the waters subsided, the impatient miners hastened to resume their operations on the island from which they had been several days excluded. The fierce flood that had swept over it had produced a wonderful change in its surface, and in some cases almost obliterated the ancient landmarks; so that the different claimants were not a little perplexed to settle the boundaries of this disputed territory. Some also maintained that a fresh deposit of gold had been distributed over the bar; and a single incident that produced a great excitement, seemed for a time to favour this supposition. A young fellow, at work on the upper end of the island, took out several hundred dollars, in a few buckets full of earth, from a part of his claim that he swore positively was entirely bare before the freshet. The gold, however, was much coarser than the minute scales universally characteristic of those diggings, so that the curious were for some time at a loss to account for its mysterious appearance. It was at length recollected that a man at work the preceding summer, on a dam just above the island, had lost a purse containing five hundred dollars; and the conclusion was irresistible that this was the treasure so curiously brought to light. The lucky finder celebrated his good fortune by having a complete "blow out," or jollification, and went roystering about at the head of a party of good fellows, till he had not a particle of his luck remaining.

Our diggings on the bank were now nearly exhausted. We had spent nearly half the working days of the last two months in prospecting—O word of fear!—had dived into the ravines—run up and down the river—tried the bank to-day, and the island to-morrow—and, in fact, fairly reduced ourselves to the verge of desperation. To confess the truth, if the reader has not discovered it beforehand, we were sadly lacking in faith, hope, energy, and perseverance, and, indeed, all those qualities that are capable of being converted into ready money. No one could work harder than we with a certainty of success, but deprive us of that, and our heads hung down like a bulrush.

It was easy enough to work in a hole already opened, but to start a new one in gravel, clay, or loam, all alike dumb, mysterious, inscrutable—to dig five or twenty feet through unsympathizing sand when it was so improbable that there was any thing there—it was really unworthy of a rational being.

But working on the bank was attended with another inconvenience arising from the difficulty of avoiding the poison-oak. This is a small shrub generally not more than a foot in height, though sometimes as tall as a man's head, with dark venomous looking leaves resembling in shape those of the oak. Its poison is of the most subtile and diffusive nature, approaching more nearly, perhaps, to that of the fabled upas than any other in the vegetable kingdom. Some, indeed, can handle it with impunity, while with others not only the merest touch but even holding it a few inches from the hands or face is followed by most painful consequences. The hands, as being most exposed, are usually the first to discover its presence. Numerous little swellings make their appearance between the fingers and on the wrist, causing an intolerable itching; and the least contact being sufficient to communicate the infection, it soon spreads to the face and other parts of the body. In a few days, with proper precaution, these symptoms commonly disappear, but are sometimes followed by others yet more unfavourable. The parts affected swell to a prodigious size, and become exquisitely painful; pustules form and break until the whole surface becomes an offensive sore, and in some cases death even has ensued. As we were both unusually sensitive to this poison, we were unwilling to expose ourselves to its influence for any thing less than eight dollars a day, and we were once more driven to the island.

This now presented a truly formidable appearance. Imagine an irregular field of about ten acres, with the stones that would rightfully belong to ten thousand acres of the stoniest pasture, collected on its surface in piles of every conceivable form and relative position. The whole had been already turned topsy-turvy, and many parts two or three times in succession yet scattered parties of miners were still at work;—our neighbours Browne and Oldbuck among them—and we heard now and then of their making fifteen or twenty dollars in a day, though the average would not have exceeded six or seven. They began, it hardly mattered where, by throwing out the stones with their hands till they reached the bottom of rotten granite, and had thus made what is called a good face for their hole; and then, scraping off a few inches of the surface, they washed it together, with the smaller stones and the trifling quantity of earth that still remained. We went to work in the same manner, and after a hard day's labour, found we had made just ten dollars.

It rained gently and at intervals all the next day and night. Wednesday morning I rose early, and stepping to the door of the tent, looked down towards the island. To my great surprise, hardly space enough remained uncovered to pitch a tent on—in twelve hours the river had risen fifteen feet—our rocker was again submerged, and this was the last we ever saw of it. I walked a short distance up the bank, and though I had been over the same ground a hundred times, I was almost bewildered by the novelty of the scene. The usually rapid river now rushed along with the speed of a mill race, and a multitudinous, deafening shout. The rocks among which we had worked, and the path where we had walked, were now all far below the surface. The waters continued to rise until the whole island was covered, but the next morning, though it was still raining, it again heaved its broad back above the waves.

In the evening we received letters from home announcing that a third brother was on his way to join us, and was, perhaps, even then in San Francisco; pleasant news, though we had so little encouragement to give him on his arrival.

Monday, Jan. 20th, we received a visit from our old friend and shipmate, Capt. Fayreweather, now on his way home. It is impossible to imagine a greater contrast than he now presented to his former self. When we sailed from N. I remembered him in a long camlet cloak, all chirping and officious good humour—not even the ignominy of being hauled up a steep plank, like a beerbarrel in a nightgown, was able to ruffle his abiding complacency. But now, his humour was dry and sarcastic, and had that peculiar tone that persons of his character are apt to assume when they wish to show that they consider themselves slighted or in any way ill-used. Between him and the smallest man in the ship there existed the same sort of antipathy as between the cat and the mouse, or the elephant and the pig. As this sentiment was instinctive on both sides, and such as often manifests itself between two such opposites, I was not a little amused at the manner in which he referred to his puny antagonist—"little Flanders," with a jerking emphasis on the first syllable. It really seemed as if I could hear the bones crack as he mumbled him in his month.

We could not help pitying the old man, and fancying—I hope it was only fancy—that he was not quite so stout and comely as he had been; we invited him to stay all night, and I gladly gave up my bed for his accommodation. As the evening advanced, he waxed more merry and genial, and some faint flashes of his wonted spirit showed what he must have been ere age and disappointment had chilled his blood; but in the morning all his fire was exhausted, or had retired inward to warm and strengthen his heart. He left us immediately after breakfast, and we soon saw him toiling up the steep hill on the other side of the village, on his way to Sacramento.

A scalded dog, says the Italian proverb, fears cold water; though possibly the case might be altered if the scalding were administered on sufficiently scientific principles, or if the said dog should happen to be blest with a taste for scientific investigation. However, it may still be thought that our recent experience with the Burke rocker should have deterred us from any further experiment of a similar nature; but the same burning zeal, or zeal for burning, that impels that humble victim of science, the moth, already singed by the blaze, again to venture within the charmed circle, and the thrice-escaped navigator to intrude again within the polar seas, was now urging us on to the same fatal catastrophe.

It was but too evident that by the commonplace methods of mining we should never achieve that brilliant fortune our hopes had promised—five dollars a day was only fifteen hundred a year, by all the known rules of arithmetic, and it was therefore incumbent upon us to strike out some bold and original plan of operations, which should at once declare our genius and secure its reward. If we could only get at the beds of the rivers without the slow, painful and uncertain process of damming, and lay our hand upon the riches that had been accumulating there for a hundred generations, as the busy waters winnowed away the chaff, we should have nothing more to ask; but how to accomplish this important object was now the question. Damming, as we have just seen, was attended with the greatest uncertainty—after months of profitless and unremitting toil, the miner often discovered that the portion of the channel thus laid bare was absolutely worthless, and that all his labour had been expended in vain. Our first thought was to convert a hogshead into a diving bell, and invade the possessions of the river gods in this moving citadel; but the difficulties that beset the construction and the use of such an awkward contrivance left no reasonable hope of success. I remembered to have read, years before, of some experiments made in the harbour of New York with a curious invention called a submarine armour, and from my recollection of its operation on that occasion it seemed exactly what was wanted for our present purpose. The more I thought of this project the more pleasing it became—doubt slowly gave way to hope, and hope rapidly ripened into full assurance of success. So I sat down and wrote a letter with trembling fingers to a friend in New York, requesting him to send me out one of these Fortunatus dresses without delay.

In the mean time, though with so brilliant a prospect before us, we continued to work on the island for the contemptible pittance I have mentioned, and with the merest apology for a rocker, which I had patched up out of the wreck of one we found on the shore nearly embedded in sand. We were thus occupied one afternoon about the beginning of February, Tertium being at the rocker, while I was on my knees scraping up the rotten granite with an iron spoon, when, hearing a voice behind me that sounded tolerably familiar, I threw as much of the California stoop out of my shoulders as possible, to welcome my brother from whom I had parted just a year, and a week, and a day before, and who now recognised us, somewhat to my disappointment, without difficulty, in spite of our rude dress and unshaven faces. As the day was nearly spent, we resisted his importunity to fall at once to work, assuring him that he would soon be able to gratify his natural ardour and curiosity to his heart's content, and in the mean time we were devoured with eagerness to hear what he had to say of friends at home, and of the incidents of his journey.

He finally submitted with a good grace, considering how sore a disappointment such a delay must necessarily be to one just arrived in the mines, and who, like all in that situation, is burning with impatience to make his first dive into the treasures that lie strewn around him.

We took him captive therefore, and led him in triumph to our tent, where it afforded us infinite delight to exhibit our housekeeping, and to listen to his simple questions on matters that had long since lost all mystery to us. His feverish desire to be employed at first occasioned us considerable perplexity—I shuddered when I saw his profane hand thrust into our treasured deposit, and laughed at the scrupulous care with which he cleaned his finger nails of the minute particles that adhered to them; but I did not feel easy till I had settled him quietly in one corner near the stove, while I proceeded to furnish forth such a supper as befitted the occasion, pleasing myself all the while at the thought of the agreeable surprise that was awaiting him.

The next morning we went all together, a mile up the river, to consider a claim that had lately been offered for sale. As this placer played quite an important part in our mining operations, and was at that time considered an exception to all established rules, scientific or otherwise, it will be necessary to describe it more particularly. About thirty feet above the river, and separated from it by still higher rocks, ran a short ravine or gully, through which, ages before, a portion of the stream probably flowed. The path along the river led directly through this little valley, and hundreds of miners had walked over it without a thought of the riches that lay under their feet.

At length came the first great freshet I have mentioned, burying at once, all the river diggings, and driving the miners every where in search of others. Curiosity led one to prospect in this ravine, when he found, to his equal surprise and gratification, that it paid as much as three or four ounces a day. The news spread like wild-fire, and the whole ground was instantly divided among a dozen claimants; and though it did not all prove equally rich, it continued for several months to yield a better return than almost any other in the vicinity.

At the time of our visit the richer portions in the bottom had been exhausted, and the miners had advanced several feet into the face of the bank which was here about ten feet high, and extended back from the river in a level plain several hundred yards. This bank, like those on the immediate edge of the water, grew constantly poorer the farther it was explored; but a considerable portion yet remained that we thought would yield us each half an ounce a day. Our former experience in buying holes had made us rather shy of this sort of merchandize, but as the price was insignificant, and the prospect satisfactory, we, after some hesitation, paid the money, and took possession in the usual manner by placing a shovel in the hole, which was thus held by as inviolable a tenure as if it had been locked up in an iron safe.

But all this while the reader should have seen the rapturous novelty with which St. John, like a new-fledged butterfly in a flower garden, was disporting him among the rocks. While I was washing one panful of earth after another, in order to be sure we were getting the worth of our money, he also having obtained a pan, went rushing here and there, thrusting his head into all sorts of odd-shaped crevices, and scraping out, to the infinite detriment of his fingers, the few handfuls of dirt and stones that had lodged in them; till having at length filled his pan, he spent another quarter of an hour in washing it out, and then, with an air worthy of some great discoverer, presented it for our inspection.

"Ah! yes," we replied coldly, for we considered it a duty to dash his enthusiasm somewhat, "that is very fair certainly, but is there any more dirt like it?"

"Oh yes!" cried St. John with the utmost animation, "there is plenty more, only see here!" and with these words, he fished out three or four spoonfuls of gravel from a narrow cleft in the ledge.

On his way home his inexperience was continually leading him into fresh vagaries, and I was very glad that neither of the scientific miners happened to be present, as such shocking perversity could not have failed to arouse their most virtuous indignation. He walked with his eyes fixed on the ground, like a man looking for lost treasure, and trod softly, as if he expected to come upon it by surprise. The yellow mica that glittered among the sand was a never-ending source of deception. At every step he discovered a spot that he was sure must have gold in it, or, at any rate, it would do no harm to try. It was in vain that we assured him that we had tried it already—that we even pointed out to him the very holes we had dug, as indeed they might be seen at intervals of three or four rods all up and down the river; wherever there was room for another hole between two already existing, his ignorant faith and ardour, now in their newest gloss, insisted upon making the experiment. We spared no pains to convince him of his mischievous error—we knew that the unpalatable truth must sooner or later be forced upon him, and the sooner the nauseous draught was swallowed the better for his peace.

We well remembered "with what compulsion and laborious flight we sunk thus low," and would gladly have spared him the same lingering painful process. But instead of gratefully receiving our well meant ridicule and friendly expostulation, he only hardened himself the more, and we were at length compelled to let the disease run its natural course.

The passing gleam of sunshine that shone on us immediately after his arrival, confirmed him in his heretical opinion, and it was not till he had spent several days in prospecting that any change for the better was discernible in his behaviour.

Having thus enlarged our business, a single rocker was no longer sufficient, and we commenced the construction of another that same afternoon. I finished it during the whole of Monday, while Tertium and St. John went up the river to make their first experiment in our new territory. Their report was not very encouraging—they brought back at night only eight dollars; but as St. John attributed this result entirely to the rocker, which was indeed a wretched affair, and I attributed it, in part at least, to my not being there to see, Tertium was the only one seriously disturbed by their ill fortune.

The next day fully justified my expectations. The earth was a most tenacious clay mixed with stones and gravel; the whole forming a solid mass of concrete that yielded slowly and painfully only to repeated blows. In spite, however, of this extraordinary hardness, and the distance of the bank from the river, one of us found little difficulty in digging and carrying as fast as the other two could wash, the clayey nature of the soil impeding this operation even more than the first. We had now discarded the raisin box, with a hoop nailed to its sides for a handle, which had hitherto served us for carrying earth, and had substituted a couple of aristocratic wooden buckets, and a very convenient implement known in some parts of the country as a sap yoke, which if not very flattering in its associations, at least made our labour a good deal easier. We rested at noon only long enough to eat the luncheon we had brought with us, and returned home at an early hour, where, on weighing the proceeds of our day's labour, we found we had just an ounce and a half.

Our bank continued to pay larger and larger dividends all the rest of the week till Saturday, when from one hundred and eighty buckets we washed out nearly three ounces, more than we had ever obtained before. After this the tide began to ebb, and our earnings gradually fell off from forty to thirty, from thirty to twenty, and from twenty to fifteen, when, it being near the end of March, we finally abandoned the place to go up into the mountains.

The month of February was unusually cold, rainy, and disagreeable; the sky was smooched with clouds, and there were one or two thick flights of snow, which melted, however, as soon as it reached the earth. On the 18th, Dr. Browne, accompanied by the snuffy Scotchman, and several others from the neighbourhood, set out for the mountains; but they encountered a violent snow storm soon after leaving Coloma, and California Hat, who went with them, became disheartened and returned to Mormon Island to wait for a more favourable season. Oldbuck, who had in vain dissuaded his companions from their enterprise, and still remained inactive in his snug quarters, could not conceal his gratification at the turn things had taken, both because he was vexed that they had not, as usual, been governed by his advice, and because his superior sagacity had been so signally illustrated. He now invited Number Four to lodge at his tent, and we were thus relieved from that horror of all saving housewives, the necessity of making up a spare bed every night, as we had done since St. John's arrival.

One Sunday, about the middle of March, while we were sunning ourselves in front of our tent, our attention was attracted by a sudden commotion under the bank, a little to the right of the village, and which was the same so emphatically denounced by the second scientific miner. Hurrying to the spot, we found a large crowd desperately at work digging out two men who had just been buried beneath a large mass of earth. The unfortunate victims of their own guilty imprudence had been picking out the thin stratum of rubble at the bottom of the bank, when the overhanging cliff, which was composed of a fine sand, some twenty feet in depth, fell in sudden ruin on their heads. In about fifteen minutes a shout from one of the workmen proclaimed that one of the bodies had been found. It was a shocking spectacle—blood, and dirt, and death—the head first, falling on the breast, then the nerveless arm, and at last, the whole poor, deserted body—how swift had been the flight of the startled garrison, at that dread alarm, along the winding ways of the heart and veins.

This incident confirmed the remark so often made as to the insensibility of the miner to the fate of his companions. Though there were of course some exceptions, the indifference generally manifested on such occasions seemed to argue that charity and humanity are not the natural spontaneous growth of the human heart, but a forced and artificial production that can exist only in the hot-bed of permanent society. After satisfying their curiosity to hear the name and residence of the deceased, the crowd disperses, and the whole matter is speedily forgotten amid more exciting interests, or remembered only as a bit of gossip a little out of the common course. If the sufferers have any friends to perform for them the last sad offices, they are carried to their final resting-place with little of that solemnity that seems inseparable from such a ceremony; and if not, they are hurried into the ground with still more indecent haste.

Spring was now rapidly advancing. The air, except during rainy weather, was the most delightful that can be imagined, and far warmer than in corresponding latitudes on the Atlantic; the mercury standing at noon on the 25th of March, at 82° in the shade. 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; no sight, no unassisted effort of the imagination could recall so delightfully the varied pleasures of that delicious season—closed blinds, open windows, watered streets, white dresses, ices, and fruits, and new-made hay. But we did not go to California for any such purpose as this; it was another shine and another glitter than of sun or flowers that we had come so far to seek; we could not turn them into coin, nor bottle them up for future enjoyment.

Accordingly the second week in April we prepared, with many misgivings, to leave our present comfortable, and even luxurious quarters, to encounter the hardships and privations of a nomadic life among more rude and uncivilised regions. The difficulty attending the choice of a location, and the doubt that clouded the whole undertaking, inclined St. John to remain where we were; but this counsel was overruled by a majority of the company, and after some hesitation we fixed upon the Middle Fork of the American River as the scene of our summer campaign.