Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 — Letter 16
_From our Log Cabin_, INDIAN BAR, _May_ 1, 1852. You have no idea, my good little M. , how reluctantly I have seated myself to write to you.
The truth is, that my last tedious letter about mining and other tiresome things has completely exhausted my scribbling powers, and from that hour to this the epistolary spirit has never moved me forward.
Whether on that important occasion my small brain received a shock from which it will never recover, or whether it is pure physical laziness which influenced me, I know not; but this is certain, that no whipped schoolboy ever crept to his hated task more unwillingly than I to my writing-desk on this beautiful morning.
Perhaps my indisposition to soil paper in your behalf is caused by the bewildering scent of that great, glorious bouquet of flowers which, gathered in the crisp mountain air, is throwing off cloud after cloud ("each cloud _faint_ with the fragrance it bears") of languid sweetness, filling the dark old room with incense and making of it a temple of beauty, like those pure angelic souls which, irradiating a plain countenance, often render it more lovely than the chiseled finish of the most perfect features.
O Molly!
how I wish that I could send you this jar of flowers, containing, as it does, many which, in New England, are rare exotics.
Here you will find in richest profusion the fine-lady elegance of the syringa; there, glorious white lilies, so pure and stately; the delicate yet robust beauty of the exquisite privet; irises of every hue and size; and, prettiest of all, a sweet snow-tinted flower, looking like immense clusters of seed-pearl, which the Spaniards call "libla."
But the marvel of the group is an orange-colored blossom, of a most rare and singular fragrance, growing somewhat in the style of the flox.
This, with some branches of pink bloom of incomparable sweetness, is entirely new to me.
Since I have commenced writing, one of the Doctor's patients has brought me a bunch of wild roses.
Oh, how vividly, at the sight of them, started up before me those wooded valleys of the Connecticut, with their wondrous depths of foliage, which, for a few weeks in midsummer, are perhaps unsurpassed in beauty by any in the world.
I have arranged the dear _home_ blossoms with a handful of flowers which were given to me this morning by an unknown Spaniard.
They are shaped like an anemone, of the opaque whiteness of the magnolia, with a large spot of glittering blackness at the bottom of each petal.
But enough of our mountain earth-stars.
It would take me all day to describe their infinite variety.
Nothing of importance has happened since I last wrote, except that the Kanaka wife of a man living at The Junction has made him the happy father of a son and heir.
They say that she is quite a pretty little woman, only fifteen years old, and walked all the way from Sacramento to this place.
A few evenings ago a Spaniard was stabbed by an American.
It seems that the presumptuous foreigner had the impertinence to ask very humbly and meekly that most noble representative of the Stars and Stripes if the latter would pay him a few dollars which he had owed him for some time.
His high mightiness the Yankee was not going to put up with any such impertinence, and the poor Spaniard received for answer several inches of cold steel in his breast, which inflicted a very dangerous wound.
Nothing was done and very little was said about this atrocious affair.
At Rich Bar they have passed a set of resolutions for the guidance of the inhabitants during the summer, one of which is to the effect that no foreigner shall work in the mines on that bar.
This has caused nearly all the Spaniards to immigrate upon Indian Bar, and several new houses for the sale of liquor, etc. , are building by these people.
It seems to me that the above law is selfish, cruel, and narrow-minded in the extreme.
When I came here the Humboldt was the only public house on the Bar.
Now there are the Oriental, Golden Gate, Don Juan, and four or five others, the names of which I do not know.
On Sundays the swearing, drinking, gambling, and fighting which are carried on in some of these houses are truly horrible.
It is extremely healthy here.
With the exception of two or three men who were drowned when the river was so high, I have not heard of a death for months.
Nothing worth wasting ink upon has occurred for some time, except the capture of two grizzly-bear cubs by the immortal Yank.
He shot the mother, but she fell over the side of a steep hill and he lost her.
Yank intends to tame one of the cubs.
The other he sold, I believe for fifty dollars.
They are certainly the funniest-looking things that I ever saw, and the oddest possible pets.
By the way, we receive an echo from the outer world once a month, and the expressman never fails to bring three letters from my dear M. wherewith to gladden the heart of her sister, Dame Shirley.
LETTER _the_ SEVENTEENTH [_The_ PIONEER, _June_, 1855] SUPPLIES _by_ PACK-MULES--KANAKAS _and_ INDIANS SYNOPSIS
Belated arrival of pack-mule train with much-needed supplies.
Picturesque appearance of the dainty-footed mules descending the hills.
Of every possible color.
Gay trappings.
Tinkling bells.
Peculiar urging cry of the Spanish muleteers.
Lavish expenditure of gold-dust for vegetables and butter.
Potatoes forty cents a pound.
Incense of the pungent member of the lily family.
Arrival of other storm-bound trains, and sudden collapse in prices.
Horseback ride on dangerous trail.
Fall of oxen over precipice.
Mountain flowers, oaks, and rivulets.
Visit to Kanaka mother.
A beauty from the isles.
Hawaiian superstition.
An unfortunate request for the baby as a present.
Consolatory promise to give the next one.
Indian visitors.
Head-dresses.
"Very tight and very short shirts".
Indian mode of life.
Their huts, food, cooking, utensils, manner of eating.
Sabine-like invasion leaves to tribe but a few old squaws.
"Startlingly unsophisticated state of almost entire nudity".
Their filthy habits.
Papooses fastened in framework of light wood.
Indian modes of fishing.
A handsome but shy young buck.
Classic gracefulness of folds of white-sheet robe of Indian.
Light and airy step of the Indians something superhuman.
Miserably brutish and degraded.
Their vocabulary Of about twenty words.
Their love of gambling, and its frightful consequences.
Arrival of hundreds of people at Indian Bar.
Saloons springing up in every direction.
Fluming operations rapidly progressing.
A busy, prosperous summer looked for.
