We had now been in the mines a year, and our affairs, as will be seen from the following calculation, were in a very flourishing condition:

Naturally supposing that the rains would render the roads almost impassable this winter, as they had done the last, and thereby cause a great advance in the price of provisions, we determined to lay in a stock sufficient to last until spring. We accordingly bought five hundred pounds of flour, one hundred of sugar, thirty of pork, besides rice, butter, coffee, dried apples, &c., &c. We also found it necessary to purchase canvass sufficient for a new tent, the small one we had brought back from our hunt in the mountains being too small to afford comfortable winter quarters.

Our new house, as it should properly be called, was of nearly the same dimensions as that we had occupied the preceding winter; but instead of being set up in the usual manner, the canvass walls and roof were stretched over a slender frame of posts and boards four inches wide. We were occupied nearly a week in building the house and bedsteads, and arranging the other furniture to our satisfaction. We knocked in the head of our hogshead, and transporting its contents, one by one, up the river to our new domicile, disposed them in the same relative position they had formerly occupied. When we commenced moving our provisions, we were suddenly put to flight by a storm of yellow-jackets that had invaded our sugar bags, and did not seem inclined to give them up without a struggle. In the contest that ensued I received several severe stings, but the enemy were finally routed with a loss of five or six thousand that we decoyed into an ambush in the shape of a large pickle jar. They had carried off, before we interrupted their depredations, several pounds of sugar; but this loss was trifling compared with the annoyance they inflicted upon us at dinner, when lured by the smell of fresh meat, as vultures are by carrion, they hung around us in countless throngs, buzzed in our soups or molasses, and levied contributions on every morsel as we conveyed it to our mouth. There were other insect plagues yet more familiar, but the subject is a sore one, and I forbear.

The new year commenced with a considerable improvement in our style of living. Since our first arrival in the mines our table expenses had not varied materially from a dollar a day; but prices had so far diminished that we were now enabled to indulge freely in certain aristocratic luxuries that we had then tasted not oftener than once a week. We had butter in plenty at only 70 cents a pound, and sweet and Irish potatoes at only twenty dollars a bushel. A regular meat market had been established in the village, where we could obtain tolerably good beef at only twenty-five cents a pound. The wild cattle of the country were driven in in large numbers by men armed with lassoes, and shut up in a kraal or pound formed by planting stout posts close together.

They often manifested the greatest unwillingness to enter the kraal, and the most amusing scenes were then presented. An ox would start suddenly off, pursued by half a dozen horsemen at full gallop, and after baffling them for a long time would turn fiercely upon his enemies; but the horses were well trained, and apparently entered into the contest with as much spirit as their riders, so that accidents seldom happened. On one occasion, a horse hard pushed by the infuriated animal, suddenly gathered himself up, and as his antagonist came within reach, dealt him such a kick between the eyes as fairly stretched him on the ground.

Not far from the kraal there dwelt a little Dutch shoemaker of those fair proportions doubtless intended by the illustrious Knickerbocker, when he compared one of his progenitors to a robustious beer-barrel mounted on skids. This little Dutchman was sitting one evening in the door of his tent, tranquilly smoking his pipe, and watching the horseman ineffectually striving to drive an unusually vicious animal into the pound, when the fierce beast suddenly made a dash in his direction. There was no safety but in flight, so hastily starting up, he rushed into his tent, hoping thus to elude the attack; but the ox, too cunning to be deceived so easily, or unable to check his headlong career, dashed in after him, and the next moment burst madly down the hill, carrying the tent on his horns. It was at first thought that the unlucky shoemaker had shared the same fate; but when the bystanders came up, half dead with laughter, to the place where the tent had stood, they found him stuck fast in the chimney, where he had finally taken refuge, while his dumpy legs, the only part of him that was visible, were feebly beating the ashes below.

On being extricated from his awkward position he exclaimed, looking distractedly about him, "Dis ish von tam country vish I never did see. I vash schmoked myself mit a pipe, and tinking I vished I vash at home, and Hans, I say, you ish von great fool; why you don't go home? ven all to vunst, I see te pull put ish head in his tail, and come like von vat you call him? von shteam locofoco; and I run and get into mine chimney, and ven I tries to get up, den, mein himmel! I vash not able to get town; and ven I tries to get town, I vasht not able to get up; and ven dey pull me town, de teufel ish in mein tent, and meinself and mein chimney ish out of te doors."

Being now snugly settled in our winter quarters, with an abundant supply of provisions for several months, we began to cast about in our thoughts for some foolish easy way of getting at the treasures locked up in the bank above us. The most natural and direct way would have been to put the earth in buckets, carry it down to the river, and wash it there in small rockers as we had done before. But we were tired of small rockers. We never could see a full-grown man sitting on a wet stone as if hatching his one solitary egg by the side of one of those ridiculous machines, his body bent forward at an angle of twenty-five degrees, and his knees as high as his chin, without a strong indication to laugh. The Long Tom demanded no such fruitless incubation, and was in other respects especially fitted for the plan we now adopted.

Our bank ran back from the river some two hundred yards with an almost level surface, then rose abruptly in irregular spurs or promontories. The gulleys between these had been the preceding winter the channels of small streams, that would together have furnished an abundant supply of water for a Long Tom. By building a dam at the foot of one of these gullies, a small pond would be formed from which as a reservoir we could bring the water in a canal to the middle of our claim, and thus avoid the necessity of carrying the earth to the river. If this expedient should be successful, five or six cents to the bucket would enable us to make half an ounce a day; and as the quantity of earth was almost unlimited, five hundred to a thousand dollars apiece seemed no very extravagant estimate for our winter's work. As the rainy season, however, would not probably set in for several weeks, we deferred the execution of our design till the last moment.

October 8th, I walked with St. John to Sacramento, in hopes of obtaining letters, as we had not heard from home for several months. The reader will, doubtless, suppose that I must have been very miserable, indeed, when he remembers the prancing hopes on which I had bounded over the same road only one short year before. But this is a great mistake. True, I had no horse, as I had so fondly imagined; but, then, I was a very clumsy rider, nor was I encumbered with those awkward saddle-bags. Besides, the day was most delightful and exhilarating. The air, the trees, the dull earth seemed drenched, through and through saturated with the transparent light. When we had gone about three miles, we met a man gnawing a biscuit. "How far is it to Willow Spring?" said St. John. The man held out his biscuit, that we might see how much he had eaten. "I bought this at the house," said he, "so you can see it is not very far." In about a quarter of a biscuit, we came to the Spring; the little green slope was still there, but not quite so green as it was before, and I showed St. John just where we had slept, and the little circle of ashes where we had boiled our coffee, and the half-burnt stones. Heigho! how very funny it seemed.

But the road was no longer so lonely; many new inns or ranches had been built in the edge of the forest, with such enticing names as "Missouri House," "New England Hotel," &c., besides two or three half-way houses—a most inhospitable sound, as if nobody ever thought of stopping, but was perpetually hurried on to some mysterious somewhere beyond.

Presently we came to one, the air of which at once attracted our attention. A little room had been built out at one side, with a veranda in front. A rocking-chair stood in the veranda, and through the open door and window we saw a bit of carpet and the snowy sheets of a four-poster. "Women and children!" cried St. John.

"Women—yes; but where are the children?"

"There; don't you see?"

Under a noble oak that shaded one side of the house was suspended a lofty swing, with its polished, shining bit of board.

"Children, to be sure, God bless 'em! but who'd have thought of ever seeing a swing in California?"

We met several little troops of dusty miners going up into the country to take possession, with their everlasting frying-pans, shovels, and tin kettles. On such occasions, not to lose entirely the pleasurable emotions of being an object of envy, we would assume a lofty and swelling demeanour, and stalked by them with a conscious air, all which, I noticed, had a great effect.

We got a lift on a wagon the last five or six miles, and arrived at Sacramento about four o'clock. On entering this famous city, I could hardly credit my senses at sight of the changes effected in a single year. We rode for a mile through Jay street; and every where there was the same crush of carts and wagons, the same endless variety of goods, and the same emulous activity. A tall Chinese, mounted on a high wagon, gaped upon us as we approached, as if he thought all who were moving in an opposite direction must needs pass down his throat. He was the first Celestial I had seen, and his portentous ugliness was altogether beyond any thing indigenous to the western hemisphere.

We took supper at one of the eating-houses, that, next to the gambling saloons, were the most striking feature in Sacramento, and slept on the counter of a store kept by one of our acquaintance by day, and an innumerable host of rats by night. These animals are not—so I was told—native to the country, but have, in a few years, increased so rapidly, that probably no place in the world except the slaughter-houses of Paris could send forth an equal army. I was actually afraid to walk after dark along the sidewalk, where there were piles of flour and similar articles—the whole space being apparently alive with rats, and the pattering of their feet sounding like a gentle shower. The great freshet at Sacramento drove them back into the country; and it was said that they then, for the first time, made their appearance in the mines.

The gambling-houses at Sacramento were on the same magnificent scale as those already described at San Francisco, but a new and important attraction had been added. Bands of skilful musicians were employed to play at intervals during the evening, the expense being defrayed by the keepers of the bar and of the different tables. Gaming, however, seemed to have lost much of its reckless character, and thousands were now seldom lost and gained by the turn of a single card.

We obtained only one letter, but were gratified by meeting some old acquaintances, one of whom gave us several papers published in our native city, which we read through, word by word, and with peculiar relish. The second day we set out on our return to Natoma, where we arrived, long after dark, and in a very exhausted condition.

All the month of October, we waited diligently for rain, as we had before waited for spring, and then for summer. November having arrived, and the rainy season being, as we supposed, near at hand, we thought it time to commence operations on our canal. By means of a straight-edged board and a plumb-line, we found that the deepest cut would have to be about four feet; the extreme length was five hundred feet; and nearly the whole was dug through the stiffest and most impracticable rubble. The dam was forty feet long, ten feet high in the middle, and built precisely on the same plan as a beaver's, with one addition, suggested by the purpose for which the dam was intended, a sluice or gateway at bottom, that we could open and shut at pleasure.

Our task was lightened by the delightfulness of the season, and by the pleasing hope that we had at last hit upon a plan that would render us superior to fortune. When, after a day's toil, we returned to our tent, in which, from its protected situation, we could hear the wind without feeling its effects—when the candle was lighted, the coffee-pot simmered on the stove, and we had exchanged our heavy boots for comfortable slippers,—we gratefully acknowledged that even this life had its peculiar charms. An interesting book would sometimes keep us up till nine, but seven was our usual hour—long practice and attention having bestowed an extraordinary facility in sleeping. Our conversation had now become astonishingly sententious and idiomatic. It was condensed into a kind of shorthand or phonography. We had become so familiar with each other's modes of thought—like those unfortunates confined for years in the same dungeon—that a single word was often enough to fire the whole train. Certain sentences were now so oppressed and pregnant with meaning, that they seemed fairly to stagger under the weight. In five years, I am persuaded that we should have refined away all articulate language, and nothing more would have been required for the most abstract conversation than the vowels' sounds, accompanied by almost imperceptible shrugs and winks.

I had once the pleasure of listening to a very interesting dialogue between two savans, with whom I was but slightly acquainted, but whose proficiency in this difficult art excited my unqualified admiration. The accent is here all-important.

"You save?" says the first.

"Yes, me save; do you save?"

"Oh, yes! I save."

Now, to any one—even if he had mastered Spanish without a master—who was unacquainted with the mode of speaking here employed, these brief sentences would seem an unintelligible jargon; and, before the least glimmer of light could reach his understanding, it would be necessary to dilute or translate them into at least as many pages of modern English. Yet, not only those who took part in the dialogue, but I myself, and all who listened to it, were in the highest degree edified and delighted at this instance of unequalled condensation, which I would respectfully commend to the consideration of all windy orators.

It was not till the 19th of November that the rainy season apparently commenced. During the night it rained moderately, and the wind blew with tremendous violence. The great pine overhead wrestled fearfully with the tempest, with its long-twisted arms, and occasionally sent down upon the tight drum-head of our canvass roof a shower of cones as big as a pineapple, that fell on our startled ears with the burst of a bombshell. We found it impossible to sleep, and, having roused the drowsy candle, huddled round the stove and amused ourselves with cracking pinenuts, of which we had, at different times, collected a plentiful supply. These nuts grow in the cones just mentioned, closely resemble in size and shape the meat of the almond, and are of a peculiarly rich and oily flavour.

Early the next morning, before we had finished breakfast, the heavy tramp of armed men, and a number of voices, called us hastily to the door. A large party were already assembled on the bank above us; and, through the tall hemlock that covered the hill towards the village, we saw all along the narrow winding path the glitter of polished pick and shovel. Hardly more sudden was the apparition of Clan Alpine's warriors on the side of Benledi.

Our visitors, however, were bound on a more peaceful errand. Some wag had started a wonderful story about the rich diggings in the Red Bank, which had produced just such an excitement in Natoma as the California fever in the Eastern States—all were anxious to obtain a share, and in a short time the whole bank, three or four hundred feet long, was staked off among the different claimants. The various disputes that arose were all amicably adjusted by arbitration, in which we as the earliest settlers were allowed the highest authority. Our decisions were marked by the strictest impartiality, and even indifference, for we believed the whole bank to be absolutely worthless; but after the leads were fairly opened, we discovered, to our infinite surprise and mortification, that several of them were far more valuable than our own. For months we had been lying idle, encamped in the very midst of riches; and now these new comers, aliens and foreigners to the bank, had taken them, as it were, out of our hands. Our folly, however, will appear more excusable when it is known that the whole place had already been prospected again and again, and even worked for weeks in two distinct locations by successive parties who had one after another given up in despair. We had ourselves made several trials in front of what afterwards proved to be the richest claim, and finding nothing, concluded, according to what was then considered the universal laws in such cases, that the bank would yield less and less the farther it receded from the river. An entirely new feature, however, was now introduced—instead of growing poorer, the bank became richer as the miners advanced, till they came in some instances to earth paying nearly a dollar to the bucket, when the lead gradually failed. This rich streak ran diagonally across the bank, so that, while at the upper end it was very near the front, it was found by those working at the lower extremity fifty or a hundred feet farther back. The value of all these claims was greatly diminished by the depth to which they ran, a superstratum of earth varying from five to fifteen feet in thickness having to be thrown off before they came to that containing the gold.

Our quiet camp now became the centre of a bustling neighbourhood—a road was laid out through the ravine close by our door for the purpose of carting earth to the river, and huge piles of earth and stones rose around us on every side. A party of slaves and free blacks, at work for an extensive landed proprietor who claimed a front of sixty feet, kept up an incessant laughing and chattering which would have shamed a monkey or a yahoo.

There was no longer any pleasure in being idle, and we determined to go to work with the rest without waiting any longer for rain. We made almost nothing in the morning, and I began really to doubt if we should ever succeed in earning enough to get home with; but the afternoon's work was much more encouraging. Our schemes were now all exhausted; we had nothing more to rely upon but patient, unremitting toil, and we determined henceforth to lose no more time in idle dreaming, but to work as long and hard as we could wherever we could make four dollars a day. We continued to mine in the immediate vicinity of our tent for the next two months, sometimes in our bank, and at others in the wide sandy slope between it and the river; and at the end of that time, besides paying all our debts, we found ourselves worth in dust nearly one hundred dollars apiece.

Though our harvest had not been very plentiful, we were unwilling to let Thanksgiving pass unnoticed. Number Four took dinner with us, and we did our best, as usual on such occasions, to provoke appetite to the utmost and yet give it an overwhelming defeat. Our first course consisted of roast beef nicely baked under a cheese box, potatoes, onions, and apple-sauce ad libitum. This was succeeded by a regular oldfashioned Christmas pudding, the crowning glory of the occasion, wanting nothing but eggs and milk, flanked on either side by a molasses pie, and a dish of tarts well stuffed with delectable currant jelly, and bravely supported by a dessert of raisins and English walnuts.

The pies would hardly have passed muster with Aunt Chloe; "they were pies sartin, but then what kind o' crust?" but perhaps that renowned "perfectioner" would have experienced some difficulty in making her "rale flecky paste" if she had had to roll it out with a bottle on the under side of a three-legged stool.

Christmas, Number Four returned the compliment and invited us to take supper at his tent, when China furnished her choicest teas and chouchou or preserves of infinite variety. We had promised ourselves the agreeable addition of Dr. Browne to our little circle, but he did not make his appearance till the next afternoon. A dam at Ford's Bar, in which he had invested all his earnings, had proved a failure, owing to nearly the same causes that had disappointed our own expectations; he had abandoned mining and was now on his way to the Sandwich Islands. In spite of his reverses he was still full of ardour as ever, and urged us strongly not to leave that part of the world at present. It was impossible not to be somewhat infected by his enthusiasm, and we found in our own dreams an additional reason for resting in the same conclusion. Whenever we dreamed of being at home, which we did repeatedly, our regret and vexation were so extreme that the remembrance of what we had suffered on waking was sufficient to quiet our homesick impatience for weeks.

The last of January, our old claim no longer yielding over four dollars a day, we moved a quarter of a mile up the river to a bar not far above the American Dam. The next day Number Four came up to bring us some letters, accompanied by two of his fine city or village acquaintance.

Dr. Ripsome was a notable instance of what may be accomplished by care and industry even under the most unfavourable circumstances. It would be difficult to find even in our most fashionable cities a more nicely dressed gentleman. His elegance was a perpetual wonder, a continued miracle. His ruffled shirt-bosom was without a spot, and his collar seemed made of enamelled tin, so boldly did it rise on either side of his carefully trimmed jet whiskers. Not a speck could be detected on his immaculate trowsers, nor on those boots that looked as if they belonged to a blacking bottle; indeed, dust and he seemed to have no affinity, but to be rather in a constant state of repulsion. He carefully dusted a smooth stone with his cambric handkerchief and sat down while we read our letters.

They contained various interesting items, all suggestive of the length of our absence from home. S. had got married—Tom had got whiskers and was become a great ladies' man—and little St. Johnny had begun to talk and was stoutly demanding when his California uncles would get home. Ah lo que es el mundo! why couldn't they have waited a little longer?—by the time we do get home, everything will be over, and nothing left to happen. This is the worst part of going away from home,—if one could only seal up what he left behind him with a certainty of finding everything undisturbed on his return, or if, like the sun in Ajalon or a clock whose pendulum has ceased its vibrations, home would stand still waiting his touch to set it again in motion, a long journey would no longer be such an ugly gap in existence, but like a break in an electric current, throw its light over our whole path.