We left Mormon Island early Monday morning, leaving the trees that had supported the ridge-pole of our tent—the heavy fortification around it—and the rude but not inelegant bedsteads where we had slept so many months, still standing in their original position, but looking weird and fantastic now that the tent which had harmonized them so well was at length removed. It reminded me of Eothen's amiable shrinking from giving up again to the desert the little spot of sand that had borne, even for a single night, the print of London boots and patent portmanteaux—and I threw backward many an involuntary glance towards the bit of earth we had so long rescued from the wild, and which seemed now to reproach us for the desertion.

We packed the most valuable of the articles we left behind us in a large cask, as the safest storehouse we could find, and left it in charge of Number Four till our return. We carried with us our tent, bedding, tools, cooking utensils, and a quantity of provisions; and to transport all this baggage we employed the same individual of whom we bought our claim in the bank, and who since that time had been engaged in a sort of peddling between Sacramento and different parts of the mines. Besides our own goods the judge, for so he was called, had agreed to carry nearly as many more for two other parties who lived in a ravine a mile up the river, and were now travelling in the same direction. On arriving at their houses, which were covered with thatch quite down to the ground, and presented a very picturesque appearance, we found they had made few preparations for departure, and the wagon was consequently obliged to wait several hours. St. John, who had been unwell for nearly a week, had now a violent sick headache, and all the symptoms of a bilious fever; and we tried to persuade him to remain behind a day or two, till his health should be somewhat restored, and he could travel with safety; but he insisted that he should feel better after we had once started, and I finally consented to walk on with him in advance.

After a brisk walk of several miles, we found we had taken the wrong turning, and retracing our steps, we struck into a by-path that we concluded would lead us into the Coloma road, and then hurried on faster than ever, in hopes of overtaking our companions, who we doubted not had entered the path before us. It had been drizzling undecidedly all the morning, but the rain now poured down in torrents, and even an India-rubber coat with which St. John was provided proved but an insufficient protection. We came at last, however, into the right road, and stopping at the first house, or rather skeleton, as there was nothing of it but the frame, we endeavored to learn if our wagon had yet passed.

They could tell us nothing, so we crouched down on the wet floor, and looked enviously at the warm matron that was frying some beef over a cook-stove, the only sight of comfort anywhere to be found. Some parties of miners who joined us, one after the other, looked wringing wet and intensely unhappy. Little puddles collected round their feet, as round a guttered candle, or a dripping umbrella. They slapped their hats forcibly against the posts to free them from the superabundant moisture, and put them back flabbily on to their lank hair. They made no attempt at conversation except by whistling, and the rain took all the tune out of that as effectually as the stiffening out of a dickey.

An hour passed and still no sign of our companions. The fever in St. John's veins was quelled by the wind that searched us through, and we were compelled to warm our blood by taking once more to the road. We measured back three weary miles, expecting every moment to meet our little caravan; then, fearing lest we should miss them in some of the crossroads, we hurried back to our stopping place, having thus walked ten miles to accomplish not more than three.

The wagon came along at noon; we hailed its appearance with a sigh of satisfaction, and resolved not to lose sight of it again, that day at least. The road for the next four miles was well nigh invisible; but our course was marked with tolerable certainty by the quagmires through which we floundered. Some of the party were kept constantly in advance, sounding the mire with long sticks in order to find the hardest bottom, and it was nearly sundown when we came in sight of our intended stopping place. In sight of it, but not at it, for the road here took a wide circuit to avoid a low piece of ground, where the wagon would have been reduced to a total wreck.

"Don't leave me here, boys!" cried the judge, in despair, as he saw two or three skulking off towards the house, and surveyed with rueful countenance the prospect before him;—"the mules can never get through here in the world—see that now!" and at the word, the wheels on one side sunk quite up to the hub, and probably nothing but the axle prevented them from going quite out of sight. We were now, however, somewhat accustomed to this course of things, so putting our hands to the spokes with sullen resignation, while the driver whipped and shouted on his staggering mules, we in another hour arrived within a hundred yards of the inn, where the wagon stuck fast, nor men nor mules could move it further, every effort only serving to sink it deeper in the mire.

We took out our blankets and carried them to the house, while the judge unharnessed his mules and tied them to a tree in the rear of the building. The dining-room was full of guests, and I noticed that, without moving their heads, their eyes continually followed the movements of a buxom servant maid, who was darting back and forth between the supper-table and a cook-stove standing in the open porch. The look of quiet complacency that slowly came out on their weary faces was not owing merely to the fragrant steam that was lazily curling from the tempting dishes before them; it was dreamy and imaginative, and showed that their thoughts were far away by their own wives, and children, and cheerful firesides. After supper the tables were crowded to one side, and a single drowsy candle, that could hardly keep its own eyes open, watched over the busy sleepers. We spread our blankets in the open porch or verandah, and threw ourselves down, saturated with mud and water, and anything but enlivened by this dismal commencement of our expedition.

The next morning, however, the sun shone brightly; it dried our damps, revived our spirits, and gave us courage to encounter the dangers of the road, which the travellers who came from that direction represented as far worse than what we had already passed. We found their accounts by no means exaggerated. We had not gone far before one of the mules, stumbling in the slough, fell and broke the pole of the wagon, which we were then obliged to haul out ourselves. After repairing this damage, which was a very tedious operation, we again set forward; but were presently again brought to a stand-still by a long stretch of marshy ground where the mules were entirely helpless. Nothing was left for us but to carry everything across on our shoulders, and then, pulling the wagon over to firmer ground, we reloaded our goods and once more got under way—all in less than an hour. Broken carts and wagons strewed all the road; ten yoke of oxen were sometimes required to extricate one of the lumbering arks that had come over the plains, and we always knew long beforehand when we were approaching any place of unusual difficulty by the shouting, or rather yelling, of the drivers, which in those profound solitudes could be heard to a great distance.

By making incredible exertions, we succeeded in reaching Weaver Creek, ten miles from our last stopping-place, and here we halted for the night. Quite a village had grown up here since my first visit; a stage whirled, or, I should say, crawled through just after dark, and, in spite of the expostulations of the more timid passengers, kept on to Coloma. We slept under the wheels of a huge ox-wagon, over which we had spread the fly of our tent. The night was cold and damp, and in the morning I emptied half a pint of dew out of the hollow of the cloth; yet all the while St. John was drying up with a burning fever, and his strength was so far reduced that he could hardly endure the fatigue of even our short journeys. There was no help for it now, however, but to push on.

The next morning we crossed the creek. It was swollen by the late rains into an impetuous torrent, and it was a fine sight to watch the long train of wagons coming down to the ford one by one;—a splash—a spring—a scramble up the gravelly hill beyond. We crossed it lower down, on a fallen tree, and entered at once into the hill-country. Here we were no longer incommoded with mud, but found nearly as great an obstacle in the loose stones that covered the road, and the jagged rocks projecting from its surface. The forward axle received such a strain in one of these encounters that it snapped just after crossing the new bridge at Coloma, and we were consequently obliged to remain here till the next morning. We made a good supper out of our stores, slept magnificently in a carpenter's shop, and started the next day, about ten, to ascend the great Coloma hill. We had been told that it was utterly impossible for two mules to draw a loaded wagon up this ascent. However, we succeeded in torturing our way by spasmodic efforts to an elevation of several hundred feet, and then, finding it impossible to proceed any further, half of the load was taken out; and while the judge went on to the summit, followed by the rest of our companions, I remained behind, to watch over our goods and assist him in reloading on his return.

The scene before me was one never to be forgotten. Drawn back among the bushes and trees that shaded the hill, I looked down the winding path upon a wide valley, like an immense panorama, with the South Fork glancing, here and there, like a string of pearls among the hills, that peeped over each other's shoulders on every side as far as the eye could reach, bounded only in one direction, by the everlasting snows of the Sierra Nevada. Parties of miners flowed by in a continuous current, generally with packmules, but now and then a loaded wagon. All seemed bent on some urgent business; if they lagged for a few steps, the next moment they roused themselves, and, quickening their pace, urged on their unsympathizing four-footed companions. It was absolutely awful to see the crowds, and I involuntarily drew back farther into my snug retreat.

The whole of the mining region was at this season in a ferment. An ant-hill, just disturbed by some sudden alarm—a crowded steamboat, on the point of starting—afford apt illustrations of the frenzy that had now invaded the entire population. From a plausible conclusion that generally prevailed that the rivers would prove the richer the nearer their source, the great object with many was to penetrate as far into the mountains as possible. Rector's Bar, far up the Middle Fork, was the principal point of attraction in this section, while hundreds and thousands were hurrying with the same breathless eagerness over on to the Sacramento, the Yuba, and the Feather rivers.

Every one was afraid he should be too late—that he should not go to the richest placers—that he should not find the fortune intended for him—that he shouldn't be able to return home the coming winter—in short, that he should not improve the present golden opportunity to the very utmost. And the question was, in truth, one of no trifling interest. Such an opportunity would never again present itself, and hundreds who had thus far been disappointed, trusted to it as to their last resource,—hoping, in some of these, as they thought, untrodden valleys, to reap the same rich rewards that had fallen to the share of the first adventurers. On their present decision rested, therefore, in great measure, all their subsequent fortune.

We entered into these feelings to the fullest extent. Before us lay an immense tract of mining country; Murderer's Bar, Spanish Bar, Ford's Bar, Big Bar, and Rector's Bar, on the Middle Fork—the more northern rivers still beyond, and caÑons without number on every side. We knew nothing of all these except by reports, and those so contradictory that they involved the subject in yet greater perplexity.

After several hours, I heard our wagon jolting down the stony hill. We hastily threw in our goods, and winding up the long and toilsome ascent, at last reached the summit, where we found our companions lying prone at the foot of a steepling pine, the bark of which was punctured as high as we could see with holes just big enough to admit the slender acorn that was stowed in each for winter's use, but whether of bird or squirrel we could not discover.

Georgetown, fourteen miles from Coloma, was the present end of our journey. This is a small and sombre collection of log-houses in the midst of a dark pine forest. There are few objects more pleasing and picturesque than a log-house standing by itself in an open clearing; but twenty or more of them together, in formal rows, are anything but attractive. Their dark rough walls drink up all the sunshine. They are as much out of place as an Indian or trapper in a great city, and have an air of melancholy about them, as if they pined for their native solitudes.

We found here, however, a very decent lodging, where they gave us a good supper, swept the floor clean for our blankets, and charged us only two dollars apiece for all these attentions. The next morning before breakfast the judge hauled our luggage over to a neighbouring hill, where we suspended our tent between two trees, and our companions pitched theirs at a short distance, to wait till one of their number who had "gone a prospecting" should give them the result of his explorations.

Monday, the 15th, they started for Rector's Bar, which they had finally selected as offering the greatest promise. We would gladly have accompanied them, but St. John's illness, which had now become very serious and alarming, obliged us to remain; and before he was well enough to travel, we heard such accounts as induced us to abandon that scheme altogether.

The week succeeding their departure was one of uninterrupted quiet. All around us rose hundreds of "tall and sombrous pines," many of which were scathed and blackened by fire, their naked, branchless trunks standing like mouldering tombstones in a churchyard of giants. The ground sloped away in front into a deep and narrow ravine. There was near us no human sight nor sound—a rising hill hid the drowsy little village entirely from our view, and the whirling tide of which we had so lately formed a part, swept by unheeded.

Often, as we lay reclined on the thick bed of pine that covered the floor of our tent, the wind sounding hollow among the trees imposed upon us the delightful illusion that we heard afar off the bells of our native city; time and space were forgotten—everything about us seemed dreamy and unsubstantial—a curious phantasmagoria, to which we surrendered ourselves without any interfering reflection. A story that I happened to have with me, written by Horace Smith, and the scene of which was laid at Venice, was in perfect harmony with this indolent after-dinner existence.

Friday, a cold dismal rain darkened this agreeable melancholy into gloom, and in the afternoon I padded over to the village in quest of a little excitement. The gambling houses were in full blast, nor was this at all a matter of wonder; in the absence of all rational amusement, and on such a day as this, I rather felt inclined to wonder that I did not gamble myself.

As St. John's health was nearly restored by this week's rest, it seemed time to be looking about us in search of a favourable opening. The rivers, so far as we could learn, had not yet begun to fall, and the accounts we heard from Rector's were so discouraging that we abandoned all present thought of advancing any further into the mountains. There was no lack of ravines in the immediate neighbourhood, from some of which immense sums had been extracted; but almost every foot of ground was appropriated; and the labour, beside being far more toilsome and disagreeable, was entirely different from that to which we had been accustomed. Buried in those deep valleys, shut out from the wholesome light of the sun, breathing the pestilent damps of stagnant water, and a rank vegetation, the unlucky miners who worked there purchased their gold at the highest possible rate, in cramps, and agues, and premature old age.

Our old friend Dr. Browne was only seven miles off, at Ford's Bar; and no better alternative presenting itself, I set out early Monday morning to make him a visit and see what could be done at that point in the way of mining. My path ran at first through the open level of the pine forest, then cutting off the head of Oregon CaÑon, made a sudden dive about three miles from Georgetown into CaÑon Creek.

Capt. Fayreweather in his wanderings had come as far as this place, and had given us a marvellous account of the steepness of the hill, and the depth of the valley; where, he said, the sun never shone, even at midday, and the miners who entered into it were obliged to climb every evening to the upper air to expel and evaporate the noisome vapours they had absorbed. Perhaps a little incident that occurred at the time may partially explain this bitterness on the part of the too sensitive old patriarch.

One night, after a long and fatiguing day, he found himself far from home, and gladly accepted the invitation of some chance acquaintance to accompany them to their camp; but when, after a long tramp over two or three high hills, they at last reached the spot, instead of the snug log cabin he expected he found nothing but two big logs laid cornerwise; which, however it might suggest the first rudiments or tender shoot of what might in time grow into a royal palace, as yet afforded but little protection against the biting winds. His friends having ushered him into this truly aboriginal bed-chamber, set about preparing and eating their own supper without wasting a thought upon their unhappy visitor, who would undoubtedly have starved before morning with hunger and cold, if he had not fortunately had the precaution to fill his pockets with bread and cheese before leaving home.

Having descended the hill, not without several tumbles, I crossed the narrow stream running through the bottom, and which was diverted from its original channel in a hundred places by the indefatigable miners, and again ascending, came in less than an hour to the brow of the hill overlooking the Middle Fork. Much had already been told me of the rugged wildness of this river, but I was wholly unprepared for the scene that now so suddenly burst upon me. Two thousand feet below, but so near that it seemed as if a vigorous leap would land me in the middle, Ford's Bar, like a mighty wedding cake, lay sleeping in the sun: the stones on its surface dwindled into sugar plums and almonds—the tents into sugar houses, with almost invisible mites creeping among them. Directly opposite, rose a hill of still taller proportions, running in and out, in irregular phalanx, as far as the eye could see up and down the narrow crooked valley—so crooked that the first thought was of wonder how the river ever got in—the second of still greater wonder how it could ever get out. A solitary turkey-buzzard, sailing like a practised skater in long swinging curves down the stream, now grazed with his wing the stunted bushes on this hillside, and the next moment threw his shadow athwart the rugged slope of the other.

To venture into such a chasm was like the frogs jumping into the well; but fortifying myself with the reflection that we should never have heard of such a place unless some one had returned from it to the upper world, I commenced the descent. The narrow shelvy path ran in short zig-zags down the face of the mountain, and naturally supposing it to know best, I followed its example. I found this mode of progression much easier than walking, though I was often obliged to check my career by clutching at the low bushes that had thrust their roots among the disjointed rocks, and in half an hour reached the bottom, my knees trembling and knocking against each other so that I could hardly stand.

Dr. Browne was at the upper end of the bar engaged, so he informed me, in the erection of a hospital for the accommodation of his numerous patients; for since his arrival at this place, where he had no longer to divide his profits with the cunning Oldbuck, he had entered in earnest on the practice of his profession. The building or edifice honoured by this lofty appellation, was a tent about six feet square, and barely high enough in the middle for a man to stand upright. It stood in the midst of burning rocks without a rag of shade about it, and seemed in every respect well fitted to test the efficacy of fire-practice in the treatment of diseases.

The prospect on the Middle Fork was not encouraging, and when I left the bar, I fully intended never to return. I was an hour and a half in ascending the hill, whose slaty sides almost crackled under the intense heat of the sun; that now declining from the zenith, levelled his perpendicular rays full against the western slope. But this being past, and the mountain forest receiving me into its grateful shadow, I was able to give wider scope to the consideration of the important matter now before me. Wherever I turned, I was headed off by the ugly question, "If you don't go to Ford's Bar, where will you go?" There was no way of dodging it, so we effected a compromise, and I concluded to go over a few days to give the place a trial, the result of which would perhaps enable us to arrive at a final conclusion. So have I seen a long-headed rat arguing to himself the expediency of choosing a trap for his future residence, and finally concluding with equal sagacity to go in, just to give the place a trial.

However, my brothers inclining to the same opinion, early the next morning I quietly submitted to having packed on my back the fly of our tent and one of our cradles, a burden more inconvenient from its size than weight,—St. John was similarly equipped with our blankets,—we each carried in our dexter hand a shovel or a pick, and thus accoutred we went humping along the road, in a strain of the profoundest humility. Tertium accompanied us to the brow of the hill, with the sap yoke and two well-filled buckets; and then returned to Georgetown to wait, in solitary dignity, the arrival of a portion of our goods that had been left behind at Mormon Island.

In addition to our former burden, we now each took one of the buckets in his other hand, and committed ourselves to the descent. Subsequent experience made the difficulties of this passage seem trifling in comparison, but at the time they presented themselves with a most formidable aspect. The elevation, indeed, was inconsiderable, compared even with that of Mount Washington, but the steepness of the path, its uneven, slippery surface, broken into steps a yard high, or covered with minute fragments of slate that afforded no sure foothold, and, more than all, our awkward burdens that sadly dislocated our centre of gravity even on level ground, compelled us to proceed with the same high-strung intensity of muscle as a dancer on the tight rope.

Once or twice I dropped in haste what I carried in my hands in order to save myself from blundering over a precipice by clinging to the bushes; and the rocker on my back received many an unlucky bump, and my dignity many a grievous affront from the compulsory sittings-down that I encountered. In an hour and a half we reached the bottom in safety, and then picked our weary way stoopedly over the stones to the store where Dr. B. had fixed his quarters. This store, a large oblong tent, stood at the upper end of the bar, near the mouth of a brook called Otter Creek, that found its way down in a succession of small cascades between two spurs of the mountain range, and emptied at this place into the Middle Fork.

We proceeded a short distance up this stream, and kneeling down camelwise upon the ground, contrived, with some difficulty, to ease our shoulders of their unaccustomed burden. Our first object after recovering somewhat from our fatigue, was to find a few poles on which to suspend our tent, or rather the long broad piece of drilling that was to take its place. This was not so simple a matter as it might seem; there was nothing in the immediate neighbourhood but two or three gigantic pines and scattered clumps of bushes; and we had to go a long way up the continuous arbour that shaded the creek before we could find anything fit for our purpose. For bedding we covered the floor with an aromatic shrub resembling the willow, the odour of which was so pungent that it filled our eyes with tears, and brought on an interminable fit of sneezing.

Having thus completed our simple arrangements, we were at leisure to look about us, and see what kind of a world it was into which we had fallen. There were about a hundred miners in this place, some of whom had pitched their tents, like our own, on the banks of the creek; but the greater part were scattered up and down the bar. Besides these, there was at least an equal number who had camped here and there along the river for several miles above and below, but were in the habit of coming to Ford's Bar to buy their provisions. There were two stores, the one already mentioned, belonging to a merchant in Coloma, and kept by a genuine Nantucketer, smooth-faced, disputatious, lank, cadaverous, and good natured; and another about the middle of the bar, owned by a man who was in every respect the opposite of the first, and went by the name of Dutch Tom.

Wednesday, we went to work in a claim given us by Dr. B., who, having taken up another of greater value, was unable longer to retain possession. In opposition to the prevailing rule, the surface was here richer than the earth below, the first foot yielding fifteen cents to the bucket, and the stratum lying immediately beneath, only four or five. But neither was fifteen-cent dirt at all suited to our notions; we had done far better than that at Mormon Island, and thought it no great things either; so the next day, leaving a pick in the hole, by which, according to the laws of the bar, we could hold possession four days without working, we set off a prospecting down the river, in the confident expectation of lighting upon a spot richer than we had yet seen except in dreams.

The Middle Fork here presented the strange anomaly of a river without banks; the mountains stood face to face, foot to foot, their broad stubbed toes actually fitting into each other, and breaking up the stream into a constant succession of falls and rapids. The bar afforded comparatively easy walking, but this being past, we found ourselves now sidling along the face of a precipice, now leaping from rock to rock at its base. Here and there, a little brook, bubbling out far up among the nodding pines, came trickling, like tears or sweat, down the deep wrinkles of the mountain, till it was drunk up by the spongy moss, and juicy bushes thick with fragrant flowers.

But wherever we came, others had been before us; and, in fact, in all my California rambles—I record it with grief and shame—I never had the exquisite pleasure of going where man had never been before, and never, except once or twice, of digging a hole where there were not others all around in most disheartening proximity.

This river, which we had thought to find an unexplored, almost virgin stream, had been already trampled by a thousand feet, and far more effectually ransacked than even the South Fork itself. This was partially accounted for by the comparatively small quantity of soil, which both in depth and extent bore no proportion to the broad deep banks of the latter river. Except on the bars it was very unusual to find earth more than two feet in thickness; and often there was nothing but the crumbling slate in whose crevices the gold had found a lodging.

The result of our explorations, while it at once precipitated us from the pinnacle of present promise, left us the largest liberty to hope as much as we pleased from the morrow; and thus our fall was broken by the same never-failing feather bed of future anticipation on which the gallant Micawber so often rested. The river must fall some time or other, though it was certainly very long about it; and then, every body said, we should find rich pickings.

In the mean time we were in great perplexity where to spend the next six weeks; we thought at first of returning to Weaverville or Coloma, until the melting snows should cease to swell the rivers, but a natural aversion to taking any step backward interfered.

We passed the evening at the store, where a small party was usually assembled; some engaged in card-playing, others in conversing on various topics, among which the mines furnished the most frequent and the most interesting. Some veteran gold-hunter, with the beard of '48 still on his face, commonly occupied the post of honour, and, with the importance, he had also a full share of the license of the professional story-teller. We were of course, like all good citizens, devout believers in every thing appertaining to the early history of our little colony; and Ford, from whom the bar received its name, was with many nearly as great a hero as Captain Kidd. For three weeks in succession he took out seven hundred dollars a day from a particular spot that was ever after regarded with almost religious reverence; but being then taken sick, he was obliged to leave the mines and make the best of his way down to Sutter's Fort, at that time the nearest point where he could obtain the necessary assistance. Before he reached the fort, however, he had not only spent all his previous earnings, but was besides in debt to the amount of fifteen hundred dollars; the enormous price he had to pay for medicine and attendance having swallowed up in a few days what would have sufficed for his whole life.

Whether this story were true or not, the ending was in strict accordance with all my own observation. I had at different times encountered many of the first year miners, but, though they all professed to have met with the like incredible success, not one of them was then a whit the better. They no sooner succeeded in scraping together a few thousands than they either got into a drunken frolic and drank it all up—which was no difficult matter with liquor at fifty dollars a bottle—or went down to San Francisco, where they found at the gaming table a still more expeditious riddance. This universal delirium must be ascribed in part to the ease with which they obtained their wealth; but far more to the character of the men themselves—disbanded soldiers—runaway sailors—and the half savage scouts or pioneers of civilization scattered over California and the adjacent countries.