Having at length concluded to remain at Ford's Bar, we became impatient to make some improvement in our style of living; for, indeed, we were all of us of a somewhat soft and luxurious temper, and began already to pine after the fleshpots of Egypt that we had so unwillingly left behind us at Mormon Island. Our only cooking utensil was a coffee-pot—we dipped our biscuit into a mixture of ants and butter, and sweetened our coffee with ants and sugar in nearly equal proportions. This is, I dare say, very delightful to read of, but for some reason we did not find it so pleasant in actual experience; and accordingly the last week in April St. John walked to Georgetown, and returned the next day with Tertium, bringing another rocker, and the more indispensable of our kitchen furniture. The judge had not yet arrived with the remainder of our goods, and they therefore left the tent still standing in the ghostly forest.

The next thing was to provide ourselves with a more commodious habitation. We ripped the fly apart, and having sewed it together again in the form of a small tent, set it up in a very convenient and agreeable situation, a short distance from that we had hitherto occupied. Between it and the water a flight of rude steps led down a few feet on to a narrow shelf, or platform, terminating on the side next the tent in a low wall, against which we built a fire-place of stones. By the side of this platform, which we intended to use as a kitchen, was another of somewhat narrower limits, which, being on a level with the water and shaded by a low-hanging tree, furnished a pleasant dining-room and place of resort in the small hours of the afternoon.

As we had long wearied of eating nothing softer than ship-biscuit, we now determined to follow the example of all around us, and, like good housewives, bake our own bread. Our first experiments were not very encouraging. The saleratus and citric acid we used instead of yeast produced but a very slight effervescence, and our loaves were nowise remarkable for lightness. For a long time, we were in the habit, on baking a new batch, of throwing a morsel into the creek, and if it floated, which did not often happen, it was considered a prodigious triumph, which only the most fortunate conjuncture of circumstances could hope ever to equal.

But in process of time we abandoned this imperfect method, and first allowing our dough to sour, neutralized the acid with a due proportion of saleratus, and thus succeeded in producing loaves which, as Dr. B. pertinently remarked, may have been surpassed, but have never been equalled. Our first cakes—I think I see them now, round, saffron-coloured, of a lead-and-leathery consistence—were baked in the universal frying-pan, which, like acting in oratory, is the first, second, and third requisite in a California kitchen. But this requiring too much time, St. John, who was something of a tinker, manufactured a baker, or reflector, out of a tin box that had contained salmon or pickled herring, and with this our success was every way satisfactory.

Our claim on the bar, originally of small extent, and, as we have seen, of no great depth, was rapidly lessening, and nothing now remained but a circle of a few yards in diameter. When we first commenced operations, a tent occupied the centre of our ground, and we at once laid siege against it in regular form. We pushed our works nearer and nearer, and with so much spirit and success, that by the fifth day we had obtained possession of one of the most important outworks—the kitchen; and having thus stopped his supplies, we had strong hopes of compelling the enemy to an unconditional surrender. He held out, however, nearly a week longer; but then, seeing us about to undermine his outer wall, he sounded a parley, and to avoid the horrors of a storm, agreed to evacuate the premises, and marched out with all the honours of war. This was the general rule, the right of the miners being considered paramount to all others, and no one being allowed to occupy, for building or similar purposes, ground that contained gold enough to pay for washing.

As a few days would finish our work on this spot, it became necessary to look out for another. We could find none, however, of any promise unappropriated, except one a few feet in width, half a mile down the river, and which at present resembled the little Frenchman's water-lots too closely to be of any great value; but trusting that we should not have so long to wait before walking over our property, we threw an old pick into the river, leaving the handle just projecting above the surface, as a notice to all concerned that we intended to work the claim as soon as possible. Some more ingenious individuals kept always on hand a store of worn-out picks and broken shovels to be used for this very purpose; and as long as they were undetected, succeeded in retaining possession of several claims all at the same time; so that the new-comer often found, to his dismay, every available point defended by this superannuated batallion.

Not yet satisfied with our possessions, and tempted by the delicious shade in which the creek was embowered, we determined to give its banks a trial, though they were generally held in very light esteem. We placed our cradle on a rude bridge just on a level with the water; the trees springing from the mossy banks on either side formed a complete arch overhead, and the whole scene presented the strongest possible contrast to the bar bleaching and blistering in the sun. It was the very poetry of mining, and paid about as well as poetry in general, our whole morning's work yielding only three dollars.

I was so far from being disheartened by this repulse that a few days after I made a second experiment at a spot not far from our own door. The bank at this place had apparently been formed by a landslide from the adjacent mountain, and here both science and experience agreed that gold was especially likely to be found. A pennyweight, nearly a dollar, that I obtained from a single panful of earth at the very outset of my undertaking, lured me on with constant hope of lighting upon some rich deposit, till having at length struck the ledge at the bottom, and found nothing more, I abandoned the project in disgust.

Monday, about the middle of May, I walked alone to Georgetown to bring over to the bar the remainder of our provisions. I obtained also five letters, for which I had to pay ten dollars, the extra postage being charged by the express agent who brought them from San Francisco.

It was easy to see, from expressions in these letters, and indeed in all that we received during our absence, that our friends at home were still in a most deplorable state of ignorance as to the extent of California. They invariably took it for granted either that the mines were in San Francisco, or at least so near that we could go there as often as we pleased. At the same time they seemed to suppose that we knew nothing of what was passing in the great world; and instead of telling us who of our acquaintance was born or married, and similar important and interesting matters pertaining to our little circle, they filled their letters with such impertinent details as the trial of Dr. Webster, the death of President Taylor, or some misbegotten battle in Hungary, in which we either at that distance felt no particular interest, or had read the whole story months before in the New York or Boston papers.

But in spite of this unfortunate misconception, our letters were well worth all we paid for them; it was impossible wholly to exclude the air of that home where they were written, and even the simple envelope with its familiar superscription came laden with a thousand tender associations.

In order to transport our tent and other articles, I hired two mules and a muleteer at twelve cents a pound as freight, for a distance of only seven miles, the usual charge of one cent a mile being in this instance increased on account of the extraordinary difficulties of the way. This is just two thousand times the cost of transportation in the New England States.

Before the end of May our first claim was quite exhausted, and the river was yet too high to permit us to commence operations in the other. In the mean time three courses presented themselves—one was to go to work on the bar, where we could always make four dollars apiece a day—another was to prospect with the dogged perseverance of a bloodhound, as others were doing, in search of the numerous little patches of richer earth that still remained hidden under the overturned masses of worthless rubbish along the banks—and the third was to do nothing.

Pride and indolence both revolted against the first—we had not a large enough bump of hope for the second—and, finally, the third was far more congenial to our temper and inclinations.

There was a small circulating library at the store, containing, for a wonder, some valuable books; and I found it far pleasanter to sit in our cellar, with my feet in the water, and my back against the tree that embraced me with its shadow, and read such delightful stories as The Home, Picciola, Lamartine's Confidences, and The Ancient Regime, or Reg-i-me, as our doctor had it, than to dig, and carry, and wask, on the burning bar, with the mercury at a hundred in the shade—and all for only four dollars a day.

When we tired of reading, or our spirits craved fiercer excitement, we strolled over to the store, where every variety of character presented itself for our amusement. A tax which was at this time assessed upon all foreign miners produced a great deal of dissatisfaction among that respectable class of the community; and the question was often argued with considerable bitterness on each side, though Thing, the storekeeper, and champion of the liberal party, generally contrived to put all concerned in good humour by the unanswerable argument in which he always took refuge. After exhausting all the objections usual in such cases, as that the law was unjust, unconstitutional, and the like, and thus rousing his democratic sympathies to the proper level, he would exclaim with admirable pertinency, and pausing for a moment in his labours, with the brimming scoop of sugar or flour in his uplifted hand, "We call America the land of the free and the brave, and all that; and then, when the poor fellows come here and try to earn a little money, we put a tax on their labour!"

At this the assembled Irish, Spanish, Dutch, and all the rest of the free and the brave aforesaid, who happened to be present, would express their admiring satisfaction each in his own fashion, while the natives, equally delighted, would applaud uproariously.

"And by the powers," cried a strapping Hibernian, who rejoiced in the honourable surname of The Tinker, and who was likewise reported to have a D branded somewhere on his person, "and that's what I call the right kind of talk any way."

"Yees," rejoined a paunchy little Dutchman, "me tinks so too; Meester Ting ish a very nice man;" while a dirty Mexican, adjusting his poncho, reiterated his Si SeÑor! muchas gracias! and other like points of admiration, with all the conscious dignity of a grandee of Old Castile.

But these scenes had sometimes a far more serious termination; and Sunday especially, when the miners came from every direction to buy provisions, seldom passed without a drunken frolic. The last Sunday in May was particularly distinguished in this manner; a new rum-shop had been opened, and all the hard drinkers in the neighbourhood signalized the event by swallowing a double allowance of liquor. They went from one store to another, drinking two or three times at each, till after several hours spent in this way, they reached that point when their natural inclinations manifested themselves without restraint.

An Irishman who, when sober, was a very clever fellow, first attacked me, as I sat on a pork-barrel, watching the progress of this strange drama, asserting that I had spoken of his countrymen the day before in a slighting and contemptuous manner, and challenging me to fight. While I was eagerly protesting my innocence, and assuring him that, on the contrary, no one had a better opinion of them than myself, The Tinker thrust himself into our party, and began, in a thick, drunken voice, to give an account of a fight in which he had been the hero, but whether in New York, or Mexico, or green Ireland, we could only conjecture. He illustrated his narrative by sundry vigorous passes in rather unpleasant proximity to the nose of his patriotic countryman, who thereupon taking sudden fire, knocked The Tinker behind a row of barrels that lined one side of the tent, where he lay a long time unable to extricate himself, his face only peering at intervals in drunken grimace over the wall of his prison. His antagonist was rendered almost frantic by this easy victory; he dashed his hat furiously on the ground, and rolling his eyes and twisting his face into horrible contortions, he flung his arms about like a stout-hearted old windmill, defying a thousand or more Don Quixotes to mortal combat.

A wiry little Scotchman, hugging his friend one moment in maudlin affection, and the next launching out into a strain of high moral eloquence—a doctor, young, handsome, and of good family, sitting on the ground and moaning to himself, the very picture of helpless imbecility,—a generous, highspirited volunteer, who had led on his company when three-fourths were cut down by the fire of the Mexicans, and who now whimperingly called on his friends to say if he was a coward,—together with half-a-score of more common soakers, quarrelsome and ill-tempered, were the principal actors; while among the crowd of spectators there was hardly one who was not, more or less, under the same influence.

They finally adjourned into the open air with the intention of going on to the next stopping-place at Dutch Tom's; but to do this it was necessary to cross the creek, here about four feet deep, and bridged only by a single log. All but one crossed in safety,—some running, some creeping on their hands and knees, and others, to show how entirely they were unaffected by the liquor, balancing along in a kind of country dance.

The dizzy pate who had fallen heels over head into the creek, no sooner recovered his footing than, seeing a number laughing at his catastrophe, he burst out with "I spose you think I'm drunk, eh? but it's all one for that; I only jumped in here acoz I was thirsty. Anybody that says I'm drunk,"—here he shook his head, with a look of direful meaning,—"I say, anybody that says I'm drunk—"

"Well," cried another, "what is it?—out with it, man."

"Well, anybody that says I'm drunk—I don't care who 'tis. You think I'm drunk?" he added, turning fiercely upon our little doctor, who had incautiously advanced too near the edge of the creek; "do you know, sir, that I was graduated, sir, at Edinboro'?"

"Si, seÑor, I have heard so," replied the doctor, who had studied a little Spanish, and was, like all the rest of us, fond of letting it off on every occasion.

"And do you know who I am?"

"Si, seÑor."

"Don't you say see senior to me," returned his amphibious antagonist, with drunken deliberation, and shaking his fist portentously at every syllable; "I know what see senior means as well as you do—it means darn your eyes."

While this was passing, a fierce dispute arose among the crowd on the other side, when one of the combatants seizing a small crowbar, dealt his enemy such a blow on the seat of honour as fairly knocked him into the creek, then jumping in after him, they instantly grappled with deadliest animosity, each striving to force the other's head under water, until they were with difficulty separated by the more sober among the spectators. This did not end the disturbance, however; knives were drawn, and matters began to assume a decidedly bloody aspect, when a miner named Graham, a man of unusual energy, seized an empty musket and threatened incontinently to shoot the first man who should renew the contest. This was an argument that all could understand; the ferment gradually abated, and something like the peace and quiet of a New England Sabbath was at length restored.

By far the greater part of the miners regarded these scenes with abhorrence; and to prevent their recurrence as far as possible, and wipe off from Ford's Bar the reputation of being the worst place on the river, they appointed a meeting to be held the next day for enacting certain laws, and choosing officers to see that they were executed.

About fifty miners assembled at the time appointed, and after a long discussion, arising from the folly of some who thought everything must be done in the same formal and cumbrous manner in which parliamentary proceedings are conducted, in more civilized communities, a few simple laws were agreed upon, Graham chosen Alcalde, and a bulky Missourian sheriff of Ford's Bar and the adjacent diggings.

The very next day an opportunity occurred of testing the new regime. The Tinker was again the hero of the play. Having swum the river, at this place comparatively smooth, he entered the store entirely naked; and after calling upon us to view his fine proportions, and touching briefly but with infinite power of expression upon his only sister, then residing in the elegant neighbourhood of the Five Points, he slung four bottles of brandy round his neck, and again committed himself to the rapid current. He would undoubtedly have reached the other side with little difficulty, even though encumbered with his precious freight; but having imprudently ventured to make a display of his amphibious powers, he was drawn into an eddy, and compelled to abandon his brandy to save the only thing he held more dear—his life.

Our hero, or rather our Leander, having thus, like hook-nosed CÆsar landing on the shores of Britain, reached the farther bank and escaped the dangers of the deep, was compelled to do battle with a yet more cruel foe. Thickset, bull-headed, exasperated by the loss of that liquor in which he was a partner, the burly giant rushed upon The Tinker, who received him nothing loath, and then ensued a combat such as was often witnessed in the classic games of Rome, but is seldom seen in these degenerate days. The contest was fierce and obstinate—long time in even scale the battle hung, but when the dust cleared away from the field of view, our reporter, intently watching the progress of the fray through his levelled glass, announced that The Tinker was victorious.

Sitting astride on the body of his prostrate foe, like Mr. Dhu on poor Fitz Jamie, or Warburton on his astonished crocodile, a junk bottle—fit instrument for such a deed—already gleamed high in air, and the next moment, as next moments always are, would have been too late, if Thickset had not suddenly drawn a knife from his right boot, and by sundry cuts and thrusts diverted the deadly blow.

Now drawing a knife upon any one was one of the offences included in our criminal statutes; but the sage legislators of Ford's Bar no more thought of including a bottle in their list of prohibited weapons than king Kehama, though possessed of superhuman wisdom, thought of charming his son's life against a stake. The Tinker therefore escaped, while his antagonist having been brought into court by the sheriff, and tried before Justice Graham, assisted by a jury of three members, was fined twelve dollars and ordered to leave the bar within twenty-four hours under penalty of a sound flogging. Accordingly, early the next morning he was seen ascending the mountain, and was shot several months after in a quarrel somewhere below Mormon Island.

This instance of prompt severity exerted a very salutary influence; though little disputes were constantly arising, the services of the judge were not again called into exercise, at least in criminal cases, through the whole summer, and Ford's Bar became tolerably quiet.

Men, to be sure, still continued to get drunk. There was no attempt that I ever heard of to introduce the Maine Law into the mines, and the only restraint imposed upon their excesses was an empty purse and failing credit, or a feeble resolution of our Nantucketer to sell no more liquor to a man who was already too tipsy to stand without leaning against the counter.

The high moral Scotchman before mentioned and one or two others were seldom seen when they were not, to say the least, somewhat elevated. They had long before reached that stage when a man can hardly be said to be himself except when animated by liquor. Deprive them of that, they were dull lifeless machines, like a run-down clock, and needed every few hours to be wound up afresh. Pour into them a little brandy and the effect was electrical—the hidden springs and wheels began to move, and soon the whole complex apparatus was in active operation. Then, what flashes of wit and humour! what eloquent harangues! what high-toned moral sentiments! Alas! what hypocrisy, what inconsistency is like that of strong drink! how high in profession, how less than nothing in practice!

Then, no matter what subject might be started, our friend Pop or Poppycoc was ready at a moment's warning to mount a box or barrel, and declaim for the hour together in any style that should be required, pathetic, didactic, historical, or argumentative. The last, however, especially suited his humour. In his mouth the expression, That's all poppycoc, from which he obtained his name, and which he had borrowed from some scenes in The Mysteries of Paris, possessed an almost magic significance. It was a mortal stab, a downright crushing blow that could neither be parried nor evaded. No matter how wisely his opponent argued, nor how good the cause, the inevitable "That's all poppycoc," broke through all his defences, and compelled him to an ignominious retreat. It was the bar of iron forty feet long on the shoulders of the dwarf, and equally confounded all degrees.

The same week on which these events occurred, our society received a most agreeable accession in the person of a little German doctor with whom we had become partially acquainted at Mormon Island.

Dr. Tabisch was a short squat figure, with a low wrinkly forehead, unusually wide, especially at the eyebrows, small piercing gray eyes, and a very large, long, and pointed nose, wearing its spectacles, for they plainly had nothing to do with the eyes, way down at its lower extremity. His mouth was also large, something between Washington's and Henry Clay's, or the blind man's that stands near the Old Brick, with long thick lips, that yet met when they were at rest, which to be sure was not very often, in a firm straight line. He wore in all weathers a long brown surtout secured under his chin with a single button; and being prevented by age and infirmity from mining, he went stumping about the country, visiting his neighbours, indulging his natural taste for botany, and making regularly, as often as once a month, what he called wonderful discoveries about the gold.

His voice was his most remarkable peculiarity, and would have made the fortune of half a dozen singing masters or ventriloquists. It began way down in his chest, and came rolling and rumbling, then shrieking, up his throat like an echo behind mountains or a locomotive coming from under a covered bridge. He uttered his first words in a smothered German guttural, and gradually raised his voice to a sharp falsetto; and if the sentence were longer than common, he went through the same process the second time. He had a habit, while speaking, of shaking his head in a very impressive manner, and bending his face towards the ground, while his sharp grey eye—it seemed at such times as if he had only one—glared terribly from under its ambush eyebrows, and his forefinger, as if to give greater certainty to his aim, vibrated slowly from the end of his own nose to that of his fascinated victim.

Such flexibility of voice could not exist without equal mobility of feature. His mouth worked incessantly, whether he were talking or not; sometimes he champed the ends of his iron-grey moustache, at others gnawed his nether lip, or protruded both as if he were about to whistle Old Hundred, or were trying to drink cider out of an imaginary bung-hole without the aid of a straw.

Add to this his strong German accent, the odd way in which he prolonged many of his vowels, those especially belonging to his bass notes, and the simple child-like vivacity he displayed on every occasion, and we had one of the funniest, most agreeable little old gentlemen I ever met with.

He had been a great traveller—had seen much of the world—and his stories were none the less interesting for being delivered in such outlandish phrase. According to his own account he had been in the allied army in 1813, and consequently entertained the most profound aversion towards Napoleon whom he allowed to possess no other merit than that of a great legislator.

"Napoleon," said he, in his most characteristic manner, "was mean—disagreeable—not handsome: he made the monks of St. Bernard furnish piece bread—piece cheese—glass wine—to sixty-seven thousand men, and then! only paid them forty thousand francs."

In this sentence the words in italics were thrown up with a sort of jerking emphasis, in the highest falsetto; while the rest, especially the forty thousand francs, was ground slowly out in most scornful gutturals.

Like most of his countrymen, he was jealous, and extremely irritable—had no relish of a jest—and was furthermore opinionative and dogmatical to the last degree; so that to continue long on good terms with him required no little caution and subserviency.

He remained but a short time at Ford's Bar, for, finding the air of the place unfavourable to his rheumatic affections, he was obliged to return to Mormon Island, leaving his son, who had hitherto accompanied him, still mining on the Middle Fork. "Well, doctor, and how much have you made?" cried Col. Oldbuck one day soon after his return.

"Five hundred dollar," returned the sturdy Knickerbocker, in his gruffest tones, and not deigning to turn his eyes on his inquisitor, who, stepping out the next moment, the doctor exclaimed, "Impudent fellaar! I did tell him lie—ask how much I made!—I would tell any man lie."

Sunday, the 9th of June, I attended church for the first and last time in California. The services were held in the open air, under the shadow of a huge pine, a short way up the creek. The congregation were seated on a pine-log, and the preacher, a strapping hirsute individual, who went by the name of Old Grizzly, stood at one end, and thus poured his eloquence into our left ear.

It was impossible not to feel the influences of the occasion. The listening mountains, older than the pyramids—the laughing brook, their twin-sister, yet so suggestive of eternal youth—the clouds that swept over the valley, and the breeze that had haunted there since creation—all disposed the soul to the most devout and lofty contemplations.

The next day we were invited to attend a funeral. Poor Van Scheick, a miner who had been suffering several weeks under two dreadful diseases, scurvy and dysentery, in more dreadful combination, had at length given up the unequal contest. He was buried high up on the hillside, that his grave might never be desecrated by the unrelenting hands of toiling avarice. No useless coffin enclosed his breast; and there, in more than regal solitude, with none to elbow him for room or grudge him his scanty six feet of earth, he laid him down to his last sleep.

There is something very affecting in this utter isolation from one's kind even in death. On our frequent visits to Georgetown we had often noticed, in a secluded spot a little way from the road, two graves side by side, with rude head-boards containing the names and residence of the deceased. I was more affected by this simple emblem of mortality than by the costliest monuments of populous graveyards. There death has become, as it were, common; it is the rule, and not the exception—it ceases to be a distinction, and no longer affects the imagination. But, in a new country, death comes to us with something of the freshness of novelty. We are not yet familiar with its aspect. We thought, perhaps, that we had left it behind—had escaped beyond its jurisdiction. Indeed, it always seemed to me strange and unaccountable that men should die in California—they came there for so short a time, and for so different a purpose; unless it should be thought they had gone twenty thousand miles simply for that!

Early in June we at length obtained possession of one fourth of a submarine armour. We paid for it three hundred and twenty-five dollars, or nearly one half our little capital; but such was my own confidence in the success of our schemes that I parted with the money that had cost us so much labour without the least reluctance. St. John was less sanguine, and I saw him turning it over in his palm with an expression of profound solicitude, as if debating the question whether a fish in hand were not worth two in the water. However, he soon decided, and clutching the purse in his fist walked rapidly down the Bar. When he returned, the purse was empty and the share was ours. The remaining shares were held by men at Big Bar, eight miles farther up the river; but, for the first scene of their operations, they had selected a spot about three miles from Ford's, and reported to be one of the richest on the Middle Fork.

The distance from our camp, trifling as it may seem, was rendered truly formidable by the nature of the path which wound along the edge of the river, sometimes dipping beneath the surface and at others rising high on the shelvy face of the mountain, or over rocks where a single false step would precipitate the unwary traveller a hundred feet down into the boiling current. At one place, called Jacob's Ladder, a flight of gigantic steps brought the giddy climber to a narrow projection resembling a pulpit, though in height a very steeple, over whose tottering verge, if he had nerve enough to make the trial, he could see the sunken rocks and whirling eddies directly at its base.

One dark and stormy night, soon after our friend Dr. B. arrived on the Bar, he was called by a stranger to go two miles up the river to visit a man supposed to be dying. Fortunately, he had never been over the path before, or his presence of mind would certainly have failed him; but, on returning the same way the next morning, he could hardly credit his senses on seeing by daylight the dangers through which he had passed, in the pitchy darkness of night and rain, with no other assistance than the pressure of the hand or hurried warning of his guide.

As these difficulties in effect greatly increased the distance, and would render it impossible for the one who assisted in working the armour to return oftener than once a week, and as he would in consequence be exposed to many hardships and privations from which our more civilized life was comparatively exempt, it became a question of considerable importance on which of us the lot should fall. The difficulty was removed, however, by St. John's magnanimously offering himself for this enterprise, which not only far exceeded our apprehensions, but proved to be the most stirring episode in the whole course of our adventures.

In giving an account of his experience, I shall still continue to make use of the third person, partly for convenience, and partly from a foolish fondness I have always had for that individual.