California — 03 - Ch. 6-8

CHAPTER VI.

The journey delayed A walk to the camp A list of wants Captain Sutter's account of his first settlement in California How he served the Indians, and how he civilised them Breakfast Captain Sutter's wife and daughter Ridiculous stories about the discovery of the goldmines Joe Smith's prophecy An Indian ghost Something about a ship-load of rifles.

_May 30th_.

--To my great disappointment, our journey was not resumed to-day.

As I had expected, Malcolm had found there was no chance of getting the farrier's assistance yesterday, and he came to me in the evening to inform me that he and the rest were going into camp for the night.

Bradley and myself found an ample supper prepared for us; and, after doing due justice to the eatables, and dressing Bradley's arm, I shortened the night a couple of hours by jotting down the events of the day.

This morning I rose early and walked to the camp, which I found, about half a mile off, under some oaks in a piece of pasture land on the Captain's farm.

I had some difficulty in finding it out, for there were at least fifteen or twenty tents of one kind or another in the "bottom."

The party were all roused, and breakfast was preparing under Don Luis's superintendence.

It was the general opinion that we must buy two extra horses to carry our breadstuffs, etc. Malcolm reported that there were a variety of articles we were still in want of; namely, tin drinking-cups, some buckets for water, with forks, and other small articles.

He recommended that a couple more axes and a strong saw be bought at Brannan's, together with hammers, nails, etc. , and some of the Indian baskets which seem to be so common about here.

On my return to the Fort, I fell in with the Captain, rigged out in a military undress uniform.

I chatted with him for half an hour about his farm, etc. He told me that he was the first white man who settled in this part of the country; that some ten years ago, when the Mexican government was full of colonization schemes, the object of which was to break up the Missions, and to introduce a population antagonistic to the Californians, he received a grant of land, sixty miles one way and twelve another, about sixteen or seventeen hundred acres of which he had now brought under cultivation.

"When I came here," said the Captain, "I knew the country and the Indians well.

Eight years ago these fields were overgrown with long rank grass, with here and there an oak or pine sprouting out from the midst.

You can see what they are now.

As to the Indians, they gave me a little more trouble.

I can boast of fourteen pieces of cannon, though one has little occasion for them now, except to fire a few salutes on days of rejoicing.

Well!

most of these guns came from Ross within the last four years; but when I first arrived here, I brought with me a couple of howitzers, from which one night, when these thieves were hemming me in on all sides, I discharged a shell right over their heads.

The mere sight of it, when it bursted, was sufficient to give them a very respectful notion of the fighting means at my command.

But though this saved me from any direct attack, it did not secure me against having my horses and cattle stolen on every convenient occasion."

The Captain went on to say, that he at last brought the Indians pretty well under control; and that, by promises of articles of clothing, they became willing to work for him.

He took good care to trust very few of them with rifles or powder and shot.

Nearly every brick in the buildings of the Fort, he tells me, was made by the Indians, who, moreover, dug all the ditches dividing his wheat-fields.

These ditches are very necessary, to prevent the large number of cattle and horses on the farm from straying among the crops.

On our way to the house, I got the Captain to speak to the head blacksmith about our horses, after which we went in to breakfast, when I saw his wife and daughter for the first time.

They are both very ladylike women, and both natives of France.

During the meal, I found Captain Sutter communicative on the subject of the discovery of the gold mines, which I was very glad of, as I was anxious to learn the true particulars of the affair, respecting which so many ridiculous stories had been circulated.

One was to the effect that the mines had been discovered by the Mormons, in accordance with a prophecy made by the famous Joe Smith.

Another tale was, that the Captain had seen the apparition of an Indian chief, to whom he had given a rifle (the possession of which he only lived three months to enjoy, having been trampled down by a buffalo in the neighbourhood of the Rocky Mountains, on his way with his tribe to make an attack on the Pawnees), when the ghost in question told the Captain that he would make him very rich, and begged that, with this promised cash, the Captain would immediately buy a ship-load of rifles, and present one to every member of his tribe.

Such were the absurd stories circulated.

The true account of the discovery I here give, as near as I can recollect, in the Captain's own words.

CHAPTER VII.

Captain Sutter's account of the first discovery of the gold His surprise at Mr. Marshall's appearance at the Fort Mr. Marshall's statement The mill-wheel thrown out of gear The water channel enlarged Mr. Marshall's attention attracted by some glittering substance Finds it to be gold First imagines it to have been buried there Discovers it in great abundance Takes horse to Sutter's Fort Captain Sutter and Mr. Marshall agree to keep the matter secret They start off to the mill Proceed up the Fork Find the gold in great abundance Return to the mill The work-people meet them A knowing Indian and a sly Kentuckian A labouring party organised Digging and washing for gold The news spreads People flock to the diggings Arrival of Mormons The gold found to be inexhaustible Men of science as blind as the rest of the world.

"I was sitting one afternoon," said the Captain, "just after my siesta, engaged, by-the-by, in writing a letter to a relation of mine at Lucerne, when I was interrupted by Mr. Marshall--a gentleman with whom I had frequent business transactions--bursting hurriedly into the room.

From the unusual agitation in his manner I imagined that something serious had occurred, and, as we involuntarily do in this part of the world, I at once glanced to see if my rifle was in its proper place.

You should know that the mere appearance of Mr. Marshall at that moment in the Fort was quite enough to surprise me, as he had but two days before left the place to make some alterations in a mill for sawing pine planks, which he had just run up for me, some miles higher up the Americanos.

When he had recovered himself a little, he told me that, however great my surprise might be at his unexpected reappearance, it would be much greater when I heard the intelligence he had come to bring me.

'Intelligence,' he added, 'which, if properly profited by, would put both of us in possession of unheard-of wealth--millions and millions of dollars in fact.'

I frankly own, when I heard this, that I thought something had touched Marshall's brain, when suddenly all my misgivings were put an end to by his flinging on the table a handful of scales of pure virgin gold.

I was fairly thunderstruck, and asked him to explain what all this meant, when he went on to say, that, according to my instructions, he had thrown, the mill-wheel out of gear, to let the whole body of the water in the dam find a passage through the tail-race, which was previously too narrow to allow the water to run off in sufficient quantity, whereby the wheel was prevented from efficiently performing its work.

By this alteration the narrow channel was considerably enlarged, and a mass of sand and gravel carried off by the force of the torrent.

Early in the morning after this took place, he (Mr. Marshall) was walking along the left bank of the stream, when he perceived something which he at first took for a piece of opal--a clear transparent stone very common here--glittering on one of the spots laid bare by the sudden crumbling away of the bank.

He paid no attention to this; but while he was giving directions to the workmen, having observed several similar glittering fragments, his curiosity was so far excited, that he stooped down and picked one of them up.

'Do you know,' said Mr. Marshall to me, 'I positively debated within myself two or three times whether I should take the trouble to bend my back to pick up one of the pieces, and had decided on not doing so, when, further on, another glittering morsel caught my eye--the largest of the pieces now before you.

I condescended to pick it up, and to my astonishment found that it was a thin scale of what appears to be pure gold.'

He then gathered some twenty or thirty similar pieces, which on examination convinced him that his suppositions were right.

His first impression was, that this gold had been lost or buried there by some early Indian tribe--perhaps some of those mysterious inhabitants of the west, of whom we have no account, but who dwelt on this continent centuries ago, and built those cities and temples, the ruins of which are scattered about these solitary wilds.

On proceeding, however, to examine the neighbouring soil, he discovered that it was more or less auriferous.

This at once decided him.

He mounted his horse, and rode down to me as fast as it would carry him with the news.

"At the conclusion of Mr. Marshall's account," continued Captain Sutter, "and when I had convinced myself, from the specimens he had brought with him, that it was not exaggerated, I felt as much excited as himself.

I eagerly inquired if he had shown the gold to the work-people at the mill, and was glad to hear that he had not spoken to a single person about it.

We agreed," said the Captain, smiling, "not to mention the circumstance to any one, and arranged to set off early the next day for the mill.

On our arrival, just before sundown, we poked the sand about in various places, and before long succeeded in collecting between us more than an ounce of gold, mixed up with a good deal of sand.

I stayed at Mr. Marshall's that night, and the next day we proceeded some little distance up the South Fork, and found that gold existed along the whole course, not only in the bed of the main stream, where the water had subsided, but in every little dried-up creek and ravine.

Indeed I think it is more plentiful in these latter places, for I myself, with nothing more than a small knife, picked out from a dry gorge, a little way up the mountain, a solid lump of gold which weighed nearly an ounce and a half.

"On our return to the mill, we were astonished by the work-people coming up to us in a body, and showing us small flakes of gold similar to those we had ourselves procured.

Marshall tried to laugh the matter off with them, and to persuade them that what they had found was only some shining mineral of trifling value; but one of the Indians, who had worked at the gold mine in the neighbourhood of La Paz, in Lower California, cried out, 'Oro!

oro!'

We were disappointed enough at this discovery, and supposed that the work-people had been watching our movements, although we thought we had taken every precaution against being observed by them.

I heard afterwards, that one of them, a sly Kentuckian, had dogged us about, and that, looking on the ground to see if he could discover what we were in search of, he had lighted on some flakes of gold himself.

"The next day I rode back to the Fort, organised a labouring party, set the carpenters to work on a few necessary matters, and the next day accompanied them to a point of the Fork, where they encamped for the night.

By the following morning I had a party of fifty Indians fairly at work.

The way we first managed was to shovel the soil into small buckets, or into some of our famous Indian baskets; then wash all the light earth out, and pick away the stones; after this, we dried the sand on pieces of canvas, and with long reeds blew away all but the gold.

I have now some rude machines in use, and upwards of one hundred men employed, chiefly Indians, who are well fed, and who are allowed whisky three times a-day.

"The report soon spread.

Some of the gold was sent to San Francisco, and crowds of people flocked to the diggings.

Added to this, a large emigrant party of Mormons entered California across the Rocky Mountains, just as the affair was first made known.

They halted at once, and set to work on a spot some thirty miles from here, where a few of them still remain.

When I was last up at the diggings, there were full eight hundred men at work, at one place and another, with perhaps something like three hundred more passing backwards and forwards between here and the mines.

I at first imagined the gold would soon be exhausted by such crowds of seekers, but subsequent observations have convinced me that it will take many years to bring about such a result, even with ten times the present number of people employed.

"What surprises me," continued the Captain, "is that this country should have been visited by so many scientific men, and that not one of them should have ever stumbled upon these treasures; that scores of keen-eyed trappers should have crossed this valley in every direction, and tribes of Indians have dwelt in it for centuries, and yet that this gold should have never been discovered.

I myself have passed the very spot above a hundred times during the last ten years, but was just as blind as the rest of them, so I must not wonder at the discovery not having been made earlier."

While the Captain was proceeding with his narrative, I must confess that I felt so excited on the subject as to wish to start off immediately on our journey.

When he had finished, I walked off to see after the horses, but, although they were ready, the additional shoes we wanted to carry with us would not be furnished for several hours; it was late in the afternoon before we got them.

We bought two horses of Captain Sutter (very strong animals), and McPhail managed to engage a big lad as a servant--a rough-looking fellow, who appears to have deserted from some ship, and worked his way up here.

All things considered, it was agreed that we should remain here another night, and resume our march as early as we could in the morning.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Author and his friends leave Sutter's Fort Tents in the bottom A caravan in motion Green hills and valleys Indian villages Californian pack-Horses A sailor on horseback Lunch at noon A troublesome beast Sierra Nevada First view of the lower mines How the gold is dug and washed The "cradle" The diggers and their stock of gold A store in course of construction The tent is pitched The golden itch First attempts at gold-finding A hole in the saucepan Sound asleep.

_Sunday, June 4th_.

--The morning we left the Fort the scene was one of great excitement.

Down in the bottom some twenty tents were pitched, outside which big fires were smoking; and, while breakfast was being prepared, the men of each company were busily engaged in saddling their horses and arranging their baggage; several wagons and teams were already in motion, following the road along the windings of the river.

The tents were soon all struck, the smoke from the fires was dying away, and a perfect caravan was moving along in the direction of the now no longer ridiculed El Dorado.

We pushed along, as may be believed, with the utmost impatience, conjuring up the most flattering visions of our probable success as gold-hunters.

The track lay through a spacious grassy valley, with the Americanos River winding along it, on our left hand.

At first, the stream was nearly two miles distant from the track of our caravan, but as we advanced we approached its banks more nearly.

The country was pleasant, consisting of a succession of small hills and valleys, diversified here and there by groves of tall oak trees.

We passed several wretched Indian villages--clusters of filthy smoky hovels, and now and then caught sight of the river and the line of oak trees which bordered it.

We managed tolerably well with our horses, but it requires great experience to be able to fasten securely the loads of provisions and stores which they carry on their backs.

Flour, of course, formed the principal article of our commissariat.

This was packed up in sacks, which were again enclosed in long pockets, made of hides, and called "parfleshes," the use of which is to defend the canvas of the sacking from being torn by branches of fern and underwood.

The sacks we secured on strong pack-saddles, between which and the back of the horse were some thick soft cloths.

All our baggage-horses were furnished with trail ropes, which were allowed to drag on the ground after the horse, for the purpose of enabling us to catch him more readily.

Besides the animals we rode, we had seven horses, for the conveyance of our provisions, tents, etc. The two we bought from Captain Sutter, though strong, were skittish, and gave us much trouble, for our newly engaged servant, whose name is James Horry, knew more about harpooning and flenching whales than about the management of horses.

He was certainly willing and did his best, but he occasioned some mirth during the day's march by his extreme awkwardness on horseback.

However, to do him justice, he bore the numerous falls which he came in for with great philosophy, starting up again every time he was "grassed," and laughing as loudly as the rest.

At noon we halted to refresh by the side of a small stream of crystal purity.

While making preparations for our hurried meal, we had all our eyes about us for gold in the channel of the rivulet, but saw none.

We had not yet reached the favoured spot.

After some difficulty in catching the pack-horses, one of the perverse brutes having taken it into its head to march up to its belly in the stream, where he floundered about for some time, enjoying the coolness of the water, we set forward, determined to reach the lower diggings by sundown.

As we neared the spot the ground gradually became more broken and heavily timbered with oak and pine, while in the distance, and separated from us by deep forests of these trees, might be seen a long ridge of snow-capped mountains--the lofty Sierra Nevada.

But we were too anxious to reach the gold to care much about the more unprofitable beauties of Nature, and accordingly urged our horses to the quickest speed they could put forth.

We were now travelling along the river's banks, and towards evening came in sight of the lower mines, here called the "Mormon" diggings, which occupy a surface of two or three miles along the river.

There were something like forty tents scattered up the hill sides, occupied mostly by Americans, some of whom had brought their families with them.

Although it was near sundown, everybody was in full occupation.

At every few yards there were men, with their naked arms, busily employed in washing out the golden flakes and dust from spadefuls of the auriferous soil.

Others were first passing it through sieves, many of them freshly made with intertwisted willow branches, to get rid of the coarse stones, and then washing the lumps of soil in pots placed beneath the surface of the water, the contents of the vessel being kept continually stirred by the hand until the lighter particles of earth or gravel were carried away.

A great number of the settlers, however, were engaged in making what are here called "cradles;" partly, I suppose, from their shape, and partly from the rocking motion to which they are subjected.

These machines were being roughly constructed of dealboards.

Later in the day I watched one of them at work, and had the process explained to me.

Four men were employed at it.

The first shovelled up the earth;

another carried it to the cradle, and dashed it down on a grating or sieve--placed horizontally at the head of the machine--the wires of which, being close together, only allowed the smaller particles of earth and sand to fall through; the third man rocked the cradle--I must confess I never saw one so perseveringly rocked at home; while the fourth kept flinging water upon the mass of earth inside.

The result of this fourfold process is, that the lighter earth is gradually carried off by the action of the water, and a sort of thick black sediment of sand is left at the bottom of the cradle.

This was afterwards scooped out, and put aside to be carefully dried in the sun to-morrow morning.

I can hardly describe the effect this sight produced upon our party.

It seemed as if the fabled treasure of the Arabian Nights had been suddenly realised before us.

We all shook hands, and swore to preserve good faith with each other, and to work hard for the common good.

The gold-finders told us that some of them frequently got as much as fifty dollars a-day.

As we rode from camp to camp, and saw the hoards of gold--some of it in flakes, but the greater part in a coarse sort of dust--which these people had amassed during the last few weeks, we felt in a perfect fluster of excitement at the sight of the wealth around us.

One man showed us four hundred ounces of pure gold dust which he had washed from the dirt in a tin pan, and which he valued at fourteen dollars an ounce.

As may be imagined, the whole scene was one well calculated to take a strong hold upon the imagination.

The eminences, rising gradually from the river's banks, were dotted with white canvas tents, mingled with the more sombre-looking huts, constructed with once green but now withered branches.

A few hundred yards from the river lay a large heap of planks and framings, which I was told were intended for constructing a store; the owner of which, a sallow Yankee, with a large pluffy cigaretto in his mouth, was labouring away in his shirt sleeves.

Bewildered and excited by the novelty of the scene, we were in haste to pitch our camp, and soon fixed upon a location.

This was by the side of a dried-up water-course, through which, in the wet season, a small rivulet joined the larger stream; we did not, however, immediately set to work to make the necessary arrangements for the night.

Our fingers were positively itching for the gold, and in less than half an hour after our arrival, the pack-horse which carried the shovels, scoops, and pans, had been released of his burden, and all our party were as busily employed as the rest.

As for myself, armed with a large scoop or trowel, and a shallow tin pail, I leapt into the bed of the rivulet, at a spot where I perceived no trace of the gravel and earth having been artificially disturbed.

Near me was a small clear pool, which served for washing the gold.

Some of our party set to work within a short distance of me, while others tried their fortune along the banks of the Americanos, digging up the shingle which lay at the very brink of the stream.

I shall not soon forget the feeling with which I first plunged my scoop into the soil beneath me.

Half filling my tin pail with the earth and shingle, I carried it to the pool, and placing it beneath the surface of the water, I began to stir it with my hand, as I had observed the other diggers do.

Of course I was not very expert at first, and I dare say I flung out a good deal of the valuable metal.

However, I soon perceived that the earth was crumbling away, and was being carried by the agitation of the water into the pool, which speedily became turbid, while the sandy sediment of which I had heard remained at the bottom of the pail.

Carefully draining the water away, I deposited the sand in one of the small close-woven Indian baskets we had brought with us, with the intention of drying it at the camp fire, there not being sufficient time before nightfall to allow the moisture gradually to absorb by the evaporation of the atmosphere.

After working for about half an hour, I retraced my steps with my basket to the spot where we had tethered the horses, and found the animals still standing there with their burdens on their backs.

Mr. Malcolm was already there; he had with him about an equal quantity of the precious black sand; it remained, however, to be seen what proportion of gold our heaps contained.

In a short time Bradley and Don Luis joined us, both of them in tip-top spirits.

"I guess this is the way we do the trick down in these clearings," said the former, shaking a bag of golden sand.

As for José, Don Luis's Indian servant, he was devout in his expressions of thanksgiving to the Virgin Mary and the Great Spirit, whom he would insist upon classifying together, in a most remarkable and not quite orthodox manner.

We now set to work to get up our tent.

Malcolm, in the meantime, prepared coffee and very under-baked cakes, made of the flour we had brought with us.

His cooking operations were greatly impeded by our eagerness to dry the sand we had scraped up--a feat in the achievement of which Bradley was clumsy enough to burn a hole in our very best saucepan.

However, we managed to get the moisture absorbed, and, shutting our eyes, we commenced blowing away the sand with our mouths, and shortly after found ourselves the possessors of a few pinch's of gold.

This was encouraging for a beginning.

We drunk our coffee in high spirits, and then, having picketted our horses, made ourselves as snug as our accommodation would allow, and, being tired out, not only with the journey and the work, but with excitement and anxiety, slept soundly till morning.