Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities 37
We worked like beavers all Friday morning in repairing damages, and
in the afternoon succeeded in washing two hundred buckets, when the
spout that received the water from the dippers, getting entangled in
the wheel, was instantly torn from its position, and tossed scornfully
into the stream. The wheel itself suffered severely in this encounter,
and on setting it in motion the next morning its dizzy efforts to
perform its stated task were pitiable to behold, and we found it
necessary to strengthen it by passing a strip of hoop iron round its
whole circumference.
Sunday, the 15th, there was a slight shower, accompanied by heavy
thunder, the first we had ever heard in California. Monday, our wheel
worked to our entire satisfaction, but not so with the Tom. A hundred
wheelbarrows, equal to six hundred buckets, yielded only sixteen
dollars instead of thirty; Tertium and St. John were out of all
patience, and it was as much as I could do to persuade them to another
trial. We raised the trough so as to increase the fall of water into
the box several inches, and now our receipts were nearly doubled.
For several days we went on swimmingly, and I began to exult over my
companions; when on the 22d we were alarmed by a few drops of rain,
followed the same night by a violent tempest. The wind, and the rain
that soaked our blankets through and through, kept us awake till long
after midnight; the next morning, however, was unusually pleasant--the
river showed no signs of the rain, and after a hard day's work, we
retired to rest with minds unprophetic of danger.
I was awaked about midnight by a whistle coming along the ravine. It
stopped just at our door, and informed us in few words that the river
had risen and swept every thing away. Hurrying down to the shore, the
scene of ruin and uproar that presented itself was so appalling, that
we rubbed our eyes to make sure that we were awake. The moon then
riding high shone upon a proud and angry flood ten times as large as
the placid stream we had parted from a few hours before, and bearing
helplessly along the mingled wreck of the dams and flumes that had
presumed to arrest its course. Our wheel, still standing on its one
leg far out in the stream, dipped its paddles into the taller waves as
they shot beneath--the other articles had floated away, and we found
them lying quietly at anchor in an eddy not far below.
Thus disastrous was the termination of this experiment. "I told you
so," cried Tertium--"Just what I expected," said St. John; while I had
not a word to offer in defence.
CHAPTER XIX.
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:
CALIFORNIA, _Dr._
Submarine armour, $420.00
One share in Washington Dam, 150.00
Travelling expenses, freight, &c., 350.00
Rockers, shovels, pans, &c., 200.00
Long Tom and wheel, 125.00
Clothing, 150.00
Provisions, 1400.00
Tent, and incidental expenses, 150.00
--------
Total, $2945.00
_Cr._
Cash on hand, $75.00
Small tent and furniture, 50.00
Tools, provisions, &c., 50.00
Sixty feet front in Red Bank, 200.00
Experience, 1500.00
--------
Total in favour of California, $1875.00
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.
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