Three years in California [1851-54]

While at this camp, I went down the river two or three miles to see a place called Mississippi Bar, where a company of Chinamen were at work. After an hour’s climbing along the rocky banks, and having crossed and recrossed the river some half-dozen times on pine logs, I at last got down among the Celestials.

There were about a hundred and fifty of them here, living in a perfect village of small tents, all clustered together on the rocks. They had a claim in the bed of the river, which they were working by means of a wing dam. A “wing dam,” I may here mention, is one which first runs half-way across the river, then down the river, and back again to the same side, thus damming off a portion of its bed without the necessity of the more expensive operation of lifting up the whole river bodily in a “flume.”

The Chinamen’s dam was two or three hundred yards in length, and was built of large pine-trees laid one on the top of the other. They must have had great difficulty in handling such immense logs in such a place; but they are exceedingly ingenious in applying mechanical power, particularly in concentrating the force of a large number of men upon one point.

There were Chinamen of the better class among them, who no doubt directed the work, and paid the common men very poor wages—poor at least for California. A Chinaman could be hired for two, or at most three dollars a-day by any one who thought their labour worth so much; but those at work here were most likely paid at a still lower rate, for it was well known that whole shiploads of Chinamen came to the country under a species of bondage to some of their wealthy countrymen in San Francisco, who, immediately on their arrival, shipped them off to the mines under charge of an agent, keeping them completely under control by some mysterious celestial influence, quite independent of the laws of the country.

They sent up to the mines for their use supplies of Chinese provisions and clothing, and thus all the gold taken out by them remained in Chinese hands, and benefited the rest of the community but little by passing through the ordinary channels of trade.

In fact, the Chinese formed a distinct class, which enriched itself at the expense of the country, abstracting a large portion of its latent wealth without contributing, in a degree commensurate with their numbers, to the prosperity of the community of which they formed a part.

The individuals of any community must exist by supplying the wants of others; and when a man neither does this, nor has any wants of his own but those which he provides for himself, he is of no use to his neighbours; but when, in addition to this, he also diminishes the productiveness of the country, he is a positive disadvantage in proportion to the amount of public wealth which he engrosses, and becomes a public nuisance.

What is true of an individual is true also of a class; and the Chinese, though they were no doubt, as far as China was concerned, both productive and consumptive, were considered by a very large party in California to be merely destructive as far as that country was interested.

They were, of course, not altogether so, for such a numerous body as they were could not possibly be so isolated as to be entirely independent of others; but any advantage which the country derived from their presence was too dearly paid for by the quantity of gold which they took from it; and the propriety of expelling all the Chinese from the State was long discussed, both by the press and in the Legislature; but the principles of the American constitution prevailed; the country was open to all the world, and the Chinese enjoyed equal rights with the most favoured nation. In some parts of the mines, however, the miners had their own ideas on the subject,

and would not allow the Chinamen to come among them; but generally they were not interfered with, for they contented themselves with working such poor diggings as it was not thought worth while to take from them.

This claim on the Yuba was the greatest undertaking I ever saw attempted by them.

They expended a vast deal of unnecessary labour in their method of working, and their individual labour, in effect, was as nothing compared with that of other miners. A company of fifteen or twenty white men would have wing-dammed this claim, and worked it out in two or three months, while here were about a hundred and fifty Chinamen humbugging round it all the season, and still had not worked one half the ground.

Their mechanical contrivances were not in the usual rough straightforward style of the mines; they were curious, and very elaborately got up, but extremely wasteful of labour, and, moreover, very ineffective.

The pumps which they had at work here were an instance of this. They were on the principle of a chain-pump, the chain being formed of pieces of wood about six inches long, hingeing on each other, with cross-pieces in the middle for buckets, having about six square inches of surface. The hinges fitted exactly to the spokes of a small wheel, which was turned by a Chinaman at each side of it working a miniature treadmill of four spokes on the same axle. As specimens of joiner-work they were very pretty, but as pumps they were ridiculous; they threw a mere driblet of water: the chain was not even encased in a box—it merely lay in a slanting trough, so that more than one half the capacity of the buckets was lost. An American miner, at the expenditure of one-tenth part of the labour of making such toys, would have set a water-wheel in the river to work an elevating pump, which would have thrown more water in half an hour than four-and-twenty Chinamen could throw in a day with a dozen of these gimcrack contrivances. Their camp was wonderfully clean: when I passed through it, I found a great many of them at their toilet, getting their heads shaved, or plaiting each other’s pigtails; but most of them were at dinner, squatted on the rocks in groups of eight or ten round a number of curious little black pots and dishes, from which they helped themselves with their chopsticks. In the centre was a large bowl of rice. This is their staple article, and they devour it most voraciously. Throwing back their heads, they hold a large cupful to their wide-open mouths, and, with a quick motion of the chopsticks in the other hand, they cause the rice to flow down their throats in a continuous stream.

I received several invitations to dinner, but declined the pleasure, preferring to be a spectator. The rice looked well enough, and the rest of their dishes were no doubt very clean, but they had a very dubious appearance, and were far from suggesting the idea of being good to eat. In the store I found the storekeeper lying asleep on a mat. He was a sleek dirty-looking object, like a fat pig with the hair scalded off, his head being all close shaved excepting the pigtail. His opium-pipe lay in his hand, and the lamp still burned beside him, so I supposed he was already in the seventh heavens. The store was like other stores in the mines, inasmuch as it contained a higgledy-piggledy collection of provisions and clothing, but everything was Chinese excepting the boots. These are the only articles of barbarian costume which the Chinaman adopts, and he always wears them of an enormous size, on a scale commensurate with the ample capacity of his other garments.

The next place I visited was Wamba’s Bar, some miles lower down the river; and from here I intended returning to Nevada, as the season was far advanced, and fine weather could no longer be depended upon.

The very day, however, on which I was to start, the rain commenced, and came down in such torrents that I postponed my departure. It continued to rain heavily for several days, and I had no choice but to remain where I was, as the river rose rapidly to such a height as to be perfectly impassable. It was now about eighty yards wide, and rushed past in a raging torrent, the waves rolling several feet high. Some of the miners up above, trusting to a longer continuance of the dry season, had not removed their flumes from the river, and these it was now carrying down, all broken up into fragments, along with logs and whole pine-trees, which occasionally, as they got foul of other objects, reared straight up out of the water. It was a grand sight; the river seemed as if it had suddenly arisen to assert its independence, and take vengeance for all the restraints which had been placed upon it, by demolishing flumes, dams, and bridges, and carrying off everything within its reach.

The house I was staying in was the only one in the neighbourhood, and was a sort of half store, half boarding-house. Several miners lived in it, and there were, besides, two or three storm-stayed travellers like myself. It was a small clapboard house, built on a rock immediately over the river, but still so far above it that we anticipated no danger from the flood. We were close to the mouth of a creek, however, which we one night fully expected would send the house on a voyage of discovery down the river. Some drift-logs up above had got jammed, and so altered the course of the stream as to bring it sweeping past the corner of the house, which merely rested on a number of posts. The waters rose to within an inch or two of the floor; and as they carried logs and rocks along with them, we feared that the posts would be carried away, when the whole fabric would immediately slip off the rocks into the angry river a few feet below. There was a small window at one end through which we might have escaped, and this was taken out that no time might be lost when the moment for clearing out should arrive, while axes also were kept in readiness, to smash through the back of the house, which rested on terra firma. It was an exceedingly dark night, very cold, and raining cats and dogs, so that the prospect of having to jump out of the window and sit on the rocks till morning was by no means pleasant to contemplate; but the idea of being washed into the river was still less agreeable, and no one ventured to sleep, as the water was already almost up to the floor, and a very slight rise would have smashed up the whole concern so quickly, that it was best to be on the alert. The house fortunately stood it out bravely till daylight, when some of the party put an end to the danger by going up the creek, and removing the accumulation of logs which had turned the water from its proper channel.

After the rain ceased, we had to wait for two days till the river fell sufficiently to allow of its being crossed with any degree of safety; but on the third day, along with another man who was going to Nevada, I made the passage in a small skiff—not without considerable difficulty, however, for the river was still much swollen, and covered with logs and drift-wood. On landing on the other side, we struck straight up the face of the mountain, and soon gained the high land, where we found a few inches of snow fast disappearing before the still powerful rays of the sun.

We arrived at Nevada after a day and a half of very muddy travelling, but the weather was bright and clear, and seemed to be a renewal of the dry season. It did not last long, however, for a heavy snow-storm soon set in, and it continued snowing, raining, and freezing for about three weeks,—the snow lying on the ground all the time, to the depth of three or four feet. The continuance of such weather rendered the roads so impracticable as to cut off all supplies from Marysville or Sacramento, and accordingly prices of provisions of all kinds rose enormously. The miners could not work with so much snow on the ground, and altogether there was a prospect of hard times. Flour was exceedingly high even in San Francisco, several capitalists having entered into a flour-monopoly speculation, buying up every cargo as it arrived, and so keeping up the price. In Nevada it was sold at a dollar a-pound, and in other places farther up in the mountains it was doled out, as long as the stock lasted, at three or four times that price. In many parts the people were reduced to the utmost distress from the scarcity of food, and the impossibility of obtaining any fresh supplies. At Downieville, the few men who had remained there were living on barley, a small stock of which was fortunately kept there as mule-feed. Several men perished in the snow in trying to make their escape from distant camps in the mountains; two or three lost their lives near the ranch of my friend the Italian hurdy-gurdy player, while carrying flour down to their camps on the river; and in some places people saved themselves from starvation by eating dogs and mules.

Men kept pouring into Nevada from all quarters, starved out of their own camps, and all bearing the same tale of starvation and distress, and glad to get to a place where food was to be had. The town, being a sort of harbour of refuge for miners in remote diggings, became very full; and as no work could be done in such weather, the population had nothing to do but to amuse themselves the best way they could. A theatrical company were performing nightly to crowded houses; the gambling saloons were kept in full blast; and in fact, every day was like a Sunday, from the number of men one saw idling about, playing cards, and gambling.

Although the severity of the weather interrupted mining operations for the time, it was nevertheless a subject of rejoicing to the miners generally, for many localities could only be worked when plenty of water was running in the ravines, and it was not unusual for men to employ themselves in the dry season in “throwing up” heaps of dirt, in anticipation of having plenty of water in winter to wash it. This was commonly done in flats and ravines where water could only be had immediately after heavy rains. It was easy to distinguish a heap of thrown-up dirt from a pile of “tailings,” or dirt already washed, and property of this sort was quite sacred, the gold being not less safe there—perhaps safer—than if already in the pocket of the owner. In whatever place a man threw up a pile of dirt, he might leave it without any concern for its safety, and remove to another part of the country, being sure to find it intact when he returned to wash it, no matter how long he might be absent.

CHAPTER XVIII.

I set out one afternoon with a friend who was also going down, and who knew the way, which was rather an advantage, as the trails were hidden under three or four feet of snow. We occasionally, however, got the benefit of a narrow path, trodden down by other travellers; and though we only made twelve miles that day, we in that distance gradually emerged from the snow, and got down into the regions of mud and slush and rain. We stayed the night at a road-side house, where we found twenty or thirty miners starved out of their own camps, and in the morning we resumed our journey in a steady pour of rain. The mud was more than ankle-deep, but was so well diluted with water that it did not cause much inconvenience in walking, while at the foot of every little hollow was a stream to be waded waist-high; for we were now out of the mining regions, and crossing the rolling country between the mountains and the plains, where the water did not run off so quickly.

When we reached the only large stream on our route, we found that the bridge, which had been the usual means of crossing, had been carried away, and the banks on either side were overflowed to a considerable distance. A pine-tree had been felled across when the waters were lower, but they now flowed two or three feet over the top of it—the only sign that it was there being the branches sticking up, and marking its course across the river.

It was not very pleasant to have to cross such a swollen stream on such a very visionary bridge, but there was no help for it; so, cutting sticks wherewith to feel for a footing under water, we waded out till we reached the original bank of the stream, where we had to take to the pine log, and travel it as best we could with the assistance of the branches, the water rushing past nearly up to our waists. We had fifty or sixty feet to go in this way, but the farther end of the log rose nearly to the surface of the water, and landed us on an island, from which we had to pass to dry land through a thicket of bushes under four feet of water.

Towards evening we arrived at a ranch, about twenty miles from Marysville, which we made the end of our day’s journey. We were saturated with rain and mud, but dry clothes were not to be had; so we were obliged to pass another night under hydropathic treatment, the natural consequence of which was, that in the morning we were stiff and sore all over. However, after walking a short distance, we got rid of this sensation—receiving a fresh ducking from the rain, which continued to fall as heavily as ever.

The plains, which we had now reached, were almost entirely under water, and at every depression in the surface of the ground a slough had to be waded of corresponding depth—sometimes over the waist. The road was only in some places discernible, and we kept to it chiefly by steering for the houses, to be seen at intervals of a few miles.

About six miles from Marysville we crossed the Yuba, which was here a large rapid river a hundred yards wide. We were ferried over in a little skiff, and had to pull up the river nearly half a mile, so as to fetch the landing on the other side. I was not sorry to reach terra firma again, such as it was, for the boat was a flat-bottomed, straight-sided little thing, about the size and shape of a coffin, and was quite unsuitable for such work. The waves were running so high that it was with the utmost difficulty we escaped being swamped, and all the swimming that could have been done in such a current would not have done any one much good.

From this point to Marysville the country was still more flooded. We passed several teams, which, in a vain endeavour to get up to the mountains with supplies, were hopelessly stuck in the mud at the bottom of the hollows, with only the rim of the wheels appearing above water.

Marysville is a city of some importance: being situated at the head of navigation, it is the depôt and starting-point for the extensive district of mining country lying north and east of it. It is well laid out in wide streets, containing numbers of large brick and wooden buildings, and the ground it stands upon is ten or twelve feet above the usual level of the river. But when we waded up to it, we found the portion of the town nearest the river completely flooded, the water being nearly up to the first floor of the houses, while the people were going about in boats. In the streets farther back, however, it was not so bad; one could get along without having to go much over the ankles. The appearance of the place, as seen through the heavy rain, was far from cheering. The first idea which occurred to me on beholding it was that of rheumatism, and the second fever and ague; but I was glad to find myself here, nevertheless, if only to experience once more the sensation of having on dry clothes.

I learned that several men had been drowned on different parts of the plains in attempting to cross some of the immense pools or sloughs such as we had passed on our way; while cattle and horses were drowned in numbers, and were dying of starvation on insulated spots, from which there was no escape.

I saw plenty of this, however, the next day in going down by the steamboat to Sacramento. The distance is fifty or sixty miles through the plains all the way, but they had now more the appearance of a vast inland sea.

It would have been difficult to keep to the channel of the river, had it not been for the trees appearing on each side, and the numbers of squatters’ shanties generally built on a spot where the bank was high and showed itself above water, though in many cases nothing but the roof of the cabin could be seen.

On the tops of the cabins and sheds, on piles of firewood, or up in the trees, were fowls calmly waiting their doom; while pigs, cows, and horses were all huddled up together, knee-deep in water, on any little rising-ground which offered standing-room, dying by inches from inanition. The squatters themselves were busy removing in boats whatever property they could, and at those cabins whose occupants were not yet completely drowned out, a boat was made fast alongside as a means of escape for the poor devils, who, as the steamer went past, looked out of the door the very pictures of woe and dismay. We saw two men sitting resolutely on the top of their cabin, the water almost up to their feet; a boat was made fast to the chimney, to be used when the worst came to the worst, but they were apparently determined to see it out if possible. They looked intensely miserable, though they would not own it, for they gave us a very feigned and uncheery hurrah as we steamed past.

The loss sustained by these settlers was very great. The inconvenience of being for a time floated off the face of the earth in a small boat was bad enough of itself; but to have the greater part of their worldly possessions floating around them, in the shape of the corpses of what had been their live stock, must have rather tended to damp their spirits. However, Californians are proof against all such reverses,—they are like India-rubber, the more severely they are cast down, the higher they rise afterwards.

It was hardly possible to conceive what an amount of rain and snow must have fallen to lay such a vast extent of country under water; and though the weather was now improving, the rain being not so constant, or so heavy, it would still be some time before the waters could subside, as the snow which had fallen in the mountains had yet to find its way down, and would serve to keep up the flood.

Sacramento City was in as wretched a plight as a city can well be in.

The only dry land to be seen was the top of the levee built along the bank of the river in front of the town; all the rest was water, out of which rose the houses, or at least the upper parts of them. The streets were all so many canals crowded with boats and barges carrying on the customary traffic; watermen plied for hire in the streets instead of cabs, and independent gentlemen poled themselves about on rafts, or on extemporised boats made of empty boxes. In one part of the town, where the water was not deep enough for general navigation, a very curious style of conveyance was in use. Pairs of horses were harnessed to large flat-bottomed boats, and numbers of these vehicles, carrying passengers or goods, were to be seen cruising about, now dashing through a foot or two of mud which the horses made to fly in all directions as they floundered through it, now grounding and bumping over some very dry spot, and again sailing gracefully along the top of the water, so deep as nearly to cover the horses’ backs.

The water in the river was some feet higher than that in the town, and it was fortunate that the levee did not give way, or the loss of life would have been very great. As it was, some few men had been drowned in the streets. The destruction of property, and the pecuniary loss to the inhabitants, were of course enormous, but they had been flooded once or twice before, besides having several times had their city burned down, and were consequently quite used to such disasters; in fact, Sacramento suffered more from fire and flood together than any city in the State, without, however, apparently retarding the growing prosperity of the people.

I arrived in Sacramento too late for the steamer for San Francisco, and so had the pleasure of passing a night there, but I cannot say I experienced any personal inconvenience from the watery condition of the town.

It seemed to cause very little interruption to the usual order of things in hotels, theatres, and other public places; there was a good deal of anxiety as to the security of the levee, in which was the only safety of the city; but in the mean time the ordinary course of pleasure and business was unchanged, except in the substitution of boats for wheeled vehicles; and the great source of consolation and congratulation to the sufferers from the flood, and to the population generally, was in endeavouring to compute how many millions of rats would be drowned.

On arriving in San Francisco the change was very great—it was like entering a totally different country. In place of cold and rain and snow, flooded towns, and no dry land, or snowed-up towns in the mountains with no food, here was a clear bright sky, and a warm sun shining down upon a city where everything looked bright and gay. It was nearly a year since I had left San Francisco, and in the mean time the greater part of it had been burned down and rebuilt. The appearance of most of the principal streets was completely altered; large brick stores had taken the place of wooden buildings; and so rapidly had the city extended itself into the bay, that the principal business was now conducted on wide streets of solid brick and stone warehouses, where a year before had been fifteen or twenty feet of water. All, excepting the more unfrequented streets, were planked, and had good stone or plank side-walks, so that there was but little mud notwithstanding the heavy rains which had fallen. In the upper part of the town, however, where the streets were still in their original condition, the amount of mud was quite inconceivable. Some places were almost impassable, and carts might be seen almost submerged, which half-a-dozen horses were vainly trying to extricate.

The climate of San Francisco has the peculiarity of being milder in winter than in summer. Winter is by far the most pleasant season of the year. It is certainly the rainy season, but it only rains occasionally, and when it does it is not cold. The ordinary winter weather is soft, mild, subdued sunshine, not unlike the Indian summer of North America. The San Francisco summer, however, is the most disagreeable and trying season one can be subjected to. In the morning and forenoon it is generally beautifully bright and warm: one feels inclined to dress as one would in the tropics; but this cannot be done with safety, for one has to be prepared for the sudden change in temperature which occurs nearly every day towards the afternoon, when there blows in off the sea a cold biting wind, chilling the very marrow in one’s bones. The cold is doubly felt after the heat of the fore part of the day, and to some constitutions such extreme variations of temperature within the twenty-four hours are no doubt very injurious, especially as the wind not unfrequently brings a damp fog along with it.

The climate is nevertheless generally considered salubrious, and is thought by some people to be one of the finest in the world. For my own part, I much prefer the summer weather of the mines, where the sky is always bright, and the warm temperature of the day becomes only comparatively cool at night, while the atmosphere is so dry, that the heat, however intense, is never oppressive, and so clear that everything within the range of vision is as clearly and distinctly seen as if one were looking upon a flat surface, and could equally examine each separate part of it, so satisfactory and so minute in detail is the view of the most distant objects.

Considering the very frequent use of pistols in San Francisco, it is a most providential circumstance that the climate is in a high degree favourable for the cure of gunshot wounds. These in general heal very rapidly, and many miraculous recoveries have taken place, effected by nature and the climate, after the surgeons, experienced as they are in that branch of practice, had exhausted their skill upon the patient.

CHAPTER XIX.

It was about the end of March when I started. The winter was quite over; all that remained of it was an occasional heavy shower of rain; the air was mild and soft, and the mountains, covered with fresh verdure, were blooming brightly in the warm sunshine with many-coloured flowers. In every ravine, and through each little hollow in the high lands, flowed a stream of water; and wherever water was to be found, there also were miners at work. From the towns and camps, where the supply of water was constant, and where the diggings could consequently be worked at any time of the year, they had expanded themselves over the whole face of the country; and in travelling through the depths of the forests, just as the solitude seemed to be perfect, one got a glimpse in the distance, through the dark columns of the pine-trees, of the red shirts of two or three straggling miners, taking advantage of the short period of running water to reap a golden harvest in some spot of fancied richness. This was the season of all others to see to the best advantage the grandeur and beauty of the scenery, and at the same time to realise how widely diffused and inexhaustible is the wealth of the country. Inexhaustible is, of course, only a comparative term; for the amount of gold still remaining in California is a definite quantity becoming less and less every day, and already vastly reduced from what it was when the mines lay intact seven years ago; but still the date at which the yield of the California mines is to cease, or even to begin to fall off, seems to be as far distant as ever. In fact, the continued labour of constantly increasing numbers of miners, instead of exhausting the resources of the mines, as some persons at first supposed would be the case, has, on the contrary, only served to establish confidence in the permanence of their wealth.

It is true that such diggings are now rarely to be met with as were found in the early days, when the pioneers, pitching, as if by instinct, on those spots where the superabundant richness of the country had broken out, dug up gold as they would potatoes; nor is the average yield to the individual miner so great as it was in those times. Subsequent research, however, has shown that the gold is not confined to a few localities, but that the whole country is saturated with it. The mineral produce of the mines increases with the population, though not in the same ratio; for only a certain proportion of the immigrants betake themselves to mining, the rest finding equally profitable occupation in the various branches of mechanical and agricultural industry which have of late years sprung up; while the miner, though perhaps not actually taking out as much gold as in 1849, is nevertheless equally prosperous, for he lives amid the comforts of civilised life, which he obtains at a reasonable rate, instead of being reduced to a half-savage state, and having to pay fabulous prices for every article of consumption.

The first large camp on my way south from Hangtown was Moquelumne Hill, about sixty miles distant, and as there were no very interesting localities in the intermediate country, I travelled direct to that place. After passing through a number of small camps, I arrived about noon of the second day at Jacksonville, a small village called after General Jackson, of immortal memory. I had noticed a great many French miners at work as I came along, and so I was prepared to find it rather a French-looking place. Half the signs over the stores and hotels were French, and numbers of Frenchmen were sitting at small tables in front of the houses playing at cards.

As I walked up the town I nearly stumbled over a young grizzly bear, about the size of two Newfoundland dogs rolled into one, which was chained to a stump in the middle of the street. I very quickly got out of his way; but I found afterwards that he was more playful than vicious. He was the pet of the village, and was delighted when he could get any one to play with, though he was rather beyond the age at which such a playmate is at all desirable. I don’t think he was likely to enjoy long even the small amount of freedom he possessed; he would probably be caged up and shipped to New York; for a live grizzly is there a valuable piece of property, worth a good deal more than the same weight of bear’s meat in California, even at two dollars a-pound.

From this place there was a steep descent of two or three miles to the Moquelumne River, which I crossed by means of a good bridge, and, after ascending again to the upper world by a long winding road, I reached the town of Moquelumne Hill, which is situated on the very brink of the high land overhanging the river.

It lies in a sort of semicircular amphitheatre of about a mile in diameter, surrounded by a chain of small eminences, in which gold was found in great quantities. The diggings were chiefly deep diggings, worked by means of “coyote holes,” a hundred feet deep, and all the ground round the town was accordingly covered with windlasses and heaps of dirt. The heights at each end of the amphitheatre had proved the richest spots, and were supposed to have been volcanoes. But many hills in the mines got the credit of having been volcanoes, for no other reason than that they were full of gold; and this was probably the only claim to such a distinction which could be made in this case.

The population was a mixture of equal proportions of French, Mexicans, and Americans, with a few stray Chinamen, Chilians, and suchlike.

The town itself, with the exception of two or three wooden stores and gambling saloons, was all of canvass. Many of the houses were merely skeletons clothed in dirty rags of canvass, and it was not difficult to tell what part of the population they belonged to, even had there not been crowds of lazy Mexicans vegetating about the doors.

The Indians, who were pretty numerous about here, seemed to be a slightly superior race to those farther north. I judged so from the fact that they apparently had more money, and consequently must have had more energy to dig for it. They were also great gamblers, and particularly fond of monte, at which the Mexicans fleeced them of all their cash, excepting what they spent in making themselves ridiculous with stray articles of clothing.

But perhaps their appreciation of monte, and their desire to copy the costume of white men, are signs of a greater capability of civilisation than they generally get credit for. Still their presence is not compatible with that of a civilised community, and, as the country becomes more thickly settled, there will be no longer room for them. Their country can be made subservient to man, but as they themselves cannot be turned to account, they must move off, and make way for their betters.

This may not be very good morality, but it is the way of the world, and the aborigines of California are not likely to share a better fate than those of many another country. And though the people who drive them out may make the process as gradual as possible by the system of Indian grants and reservations, yet, as with wild cattle, so it is with Indians, so many head, and no more, can live on a given quantity of land, and, if crowded into too small a compass, the result is certain though gradual extirpation, for by their numbers they prevent the reproduction of their means of subsistence.

At the time of my arrival in Moquelumne Hill, the town was posted all over with placards, which I had also observed stuck upon trees and rocks by the road-side as I travelled over the mountains. They were to this effect:—

The proprietors then went on to state that they had nothing to do with the humbugging which characterised the last fight, and begged confidently to assure the public that this would be the most splendid exhibition ever seen in the country.

I had often heard of these bull-and-bear fights as popular amusements in some parts of the State, but had never yet had an opportunity of witnessing them; so, on Sunday the 15th, I found myself walking up towards the arena, among a crowd of miners and others of all nations, to witness the performances of the redoubted General Scott.

The amphitheatre was a roughly but strongly built wooden structure, uncovered of course; and the outer enclosure, which was of boards about ten feet high, was a hundred feet in diameter. The arena in the centre was forty feet in diameter, and enclosed by a very strong five-barred fence. From the top of this rose tiers of seats, occupying the space between the arena and the outside enclosure.

As the appointed hour drew near, the company continued to arrive till the whole place was crowded; while, to beguile the time till the business of the day should commence, two fiddlers—a white man and a gentleman of colour—performed a variety of appropriate airs.

The scene was gay and brilliant, and was one which would have made a crowded opera-house appear gloomy and dull in comparison. The shelving bank of human beings which encircled the place was like a mass of bright flowers. The most conspicuous objects were the shirts of the miners, red, white, and blue being the fashionable colours, among which appeared bronzed and bearded faces under hats of every hue; revolvers and silver-handled bowie-knives glanced in the bright sunshine, and among the crowd were numbers of gay Mexican blankets, and red and blue French bonnets, while here and there the fair sex was represented by a few Mexican women in snowy-white dresses, puffing their cigaritas in delightful anticipation of the exciting scene which was to be enacted. Over the heads of the highest circle of spectators was seen mountain beyond mountain fading away in the distance, and on the green turf of the arena lay the great centre of attraction, the hero of the day, General Scott.

He was, however, not yet exposed to public gaze, but was confined in his cage, a heavy wooden box lined with iron, with open iron-bars on one side, which for the present was boarded over. From the centre of the arena a chain led into the cage, and at the end of it no doubt the bear was to be found. Beneath the scaffolding on which sat the spectators were two pens, each containing a very handsome bull, showing evident signs of indignation at his confinement. Here also was the bar, without which no place of public amusement would be complete.

There was much excitement among the crowd as to the result of the battle, as the bear had already killed several bulls; but an idea prevailed that in former fights the bulls had not had fair play, being tied by a rope to the bear, and having the tips of their horns sawed off. But on this occasion the bull was to have every advantage which could be given him; and he certainly had the good wishes of the spectators, though the bear was considered such a successful and experienced bull-fighter that the betting was all in his favour. Some of my neighbours gave it as their opinion, that there was “nary bull in Calaforny as could whip that bar.”

At last, after a final tattoo had been beaten on a gong to make the stragglers hurry up the hill, preparations were made for beginning the fight.

The bear made his appearance before the public in a very bearish manner. His cage ran upon very small wheels, and some bolts having been slipped connected with the face of it, it was dragged out of the ring, when, as his chain only allowed him to come within a foot or two of the fence, the General was rolled out upon the ground all of a heap, and very much against his inclination apparently, for he made violent efforts to regain his cage as it disappeared. When he saw that was hopeless, he floundered half-way round the ring at the length of his chain, and commenced to tear up the earth with his fore-paws. He was a grizzly bear of pretty large size, weighing about twelve hundred pounds.

The next thing to be done was to introduce the bull. The bars between his pen and the arena were removed, while two or three men stood ready to put them up again as soon as he should come out. But he did not seem to like the prospect, and was not disposed to move till pretty sharply poked up from behind, when, making a furious dash at the red flag which was being waved in front of the gate, he found himself in the ring face to face with General Scott.

The General, in the mean time, had scraped a hole for himself two or three inches deep, in which he was lying down. This, I was told by those who had seen his performances before, was his usual fighting attitude.

The bull was a very beautiful animal, of a dark purple colour marked with white. His horns were regular and sharp, and his coat was as smooth and glossy as a racer’s. He stood for a moment taking a survey of the bear, the ring, and the crowds of people; but not liking the appearance of things in general, he wheeled round, and made a splendid dash at the bars, which had already been put up between him and his pen, smashing through them with as much ease as the man in the circus leaps through a hoop of brown paper. This was only losing time, however, for he had to go in and fight, and might as well have done so at once. He was accordingly again persuaded to enter the arena, and a perfect barricade of bars and boards was erected to prevent his making another retreat. But this time he had made up his mind to fight; and after looking steadily at the bear for a few minutes as if taking aim at him, he put down his head and charged furiously at him across the arena. The bear received him crouching down as low as he could, and though one could hear the bump of the bull’s head and horns upon his ribs, he was quick enough to seize the bull by the nose before he could retreat. This spirited commencement of the battle on the part of the bull was hailed with uproarious applause; and by having shown such pluck, he had gained more than ever the sympathy of the people.

In the mean time, the bear, lying on his back, held the bull’s nose firmly between his teeth, and embraced him round the neck with his fore-paws, while the bull made the most of his opportunities in stamping on the bear with his hind-feet. At last the General became exasperated at such treatment, and shook the bull savagely by the nose, when a promiscuous scuffle ensued, which resulted in the bear throwing his antagonist to the ground with his fore-paws.

For this feat the bear was cheered immensely, and it was thought that, having the bull down, he would make short work of him; but apparently wild beasts do not tear each other to pieces quite so easily as is generally supposed, for neither the bear’s teeth nor his long claws seemed to have much effect on the hide of the bull, who soon regained his feet, and, disengaging himself, retired to the other side of the ring, while the bear again crouched down in his hole.

Neither of them seemed to be very much the worse of the encounter, excepting that the bull’s nose had rather a ragged and bloody appearance; but after standing a few minutes, steadily eyeing the General, he made another rush at him. Again poor bruin’s ribs resounded, but again he took the bull’s nose into chancery, having seized him just as before. The bull, however, quickly disengaged himself, and was making off, when the General, not wishing to part with him so soon, seized his hind-foot between his teeth, and, holding on by his paws as well, was thus dragged round the ring before he quitted his hold.

This round terminated with shouts of delight from the excited spectators, and it was thought that the bull might have a chance after all. He had been severely punished, however; his nose and lips were a mass of bloody shreds, and he lay down to recover himself. But he was not allowed to rest very long, being poked up with sticks by men outside, which made him very savage. He made several feints to charge them through the bars, which, fortunately, he did not attempt, for he could certainly have gone through them as easily as he had before broken into his pen. He showed no inclination to renew the combat; but by goading him, and waving a red flag over the bear, he was eventually worked up to such a state of fury as to make another charge. The result was exactly the same as before, only that when the bull managed to get up after being thrown, the bear still had hold of the skin of his back.

In the next round both parties fought more savagely than ever, and the advantage was rather in favour of the bear: the bull seemed to be quite used up, and to have lost all chance of victory.

The conductor of the performances then mounted the barrier, and, addressing the crowd, asked them if the bull had not had fair play, which was unanimously allowed. He then stated that he knew there was not a bull in California which the General could not whip, and that for two hundred dollars he would let in the other bull, and the three should fight it out till one or all were killed.

This proposal was received with loud cheers, and two or three men going round with hats soon collected, in voluntary contributions, the required amount. The people were intensely excited and delighted with the sport, and double the sum would have been just as quickly raised to insure a continuance of the scene. A man sitting next me, who was a connoisseur in bear-fights, and passionately fond of