It
was
in
this
Sacramento
Valley,
just
referred
to,
that
a
deal
of
the
most
lucrative
of
the
early
gold
mining
was
done,
and
you
may
still
see,
in
places,
its
grassy slopes
and
levels
torn
and
guttered
and
disfigured
by
the
avaricious
spoilers
of
fifteen
and
twenty
years
ago.
You
may
see
such
disfigurements
far
and
wide
over
California—and
in
some
such
places,
where
only
meadows
and
forests
are
visible—not a
living
creature,
not
a house,
no
stick
or
stone
or
remnant
of
a ruin,
and
not
a sound,
not
even
a whisper
to
disturb
the
Sabbath
stillness—you
will
find
it
hard
to
believe
that
there
stood
at
one
time a fiercely-flourishing
little
city,
of
two
thousand
or
three
thousand
souls,
with
its
newspaper,
fire
company,
brass
band, volunteer militia, bank, hotels, noisy
Fourth
of
July
processions
and
speeches, gambling
hells
crammed
with
tobacco
smoke, profanity,
and
rough-bearded men
of
all
nations
and
colors,
with
tables
heaped
with
gold
dust
sufficient
for
the
revenues
of
a
German
principality—streets crowded
and
rife
with
business—town
lots
worth
four
hundred
dollars
a front foot—labor, laughter, music, dancing, swearing, fighting, shooting, stabbing—a
bloody
inquest
and
a
man
for
breakfast
every
morning—everything
that
delights
and
adorns
existence—all
the
appointments
and
appurtenances
of
a
thriving
and
prosperous
and
promising
young
city,—and
now
nothing
is
left
of
it
all
but
a lifeless,
homeless
solitude.
The
men
are
gone,
the
houses
have
vanished,
even
the
name
of
the
place
is
forgotten.
In
no
other
land,
in
modern
times,
have
towns
so
absolutely
died
and
disappeared,
as
in
the
old
mining
regions
of
California.
It
was
a driving, vigorous,
restless
population
in
those
days.
It
was
a
curious
population.
It
was
the
only
population
of
the
kind
that
the
world
has
ever
seen
gathered
together,
and
it
is
not
likely
that
the
world
will
ever
see
its
like
again.
For
observe,
it
was
an
assemblage
of
two
hundred
thousand
young
men—not simpering, dainty, kid-gloved weaklings,
but
stalwart, muscular, dauntless
young
braves, brimful
of
push
and
energy,
and
royally endowed
with
every
attribute
that
goes
to
make
up
a peerless
and
magnificent
manhood—the
very
pick
and
choice
of
the
world's
glorious
ones.
No
women,
no
children,
no
gray
and
stooping
veterans,—none
but
erect, bright-eyed, quick-moving, strong-handed
young
giants—the
strangest
population,
the
finest
population,
the
most
gallant host
that
ever
trooped
down
the
startled
solitudes
of
an
unpeopled land.
And
where
are
they
now?
Scattered
to
the
ends
of
the
earth—or
prematurely
aged
and
decrepit—or
shot
or
stabbed
in
street
affrays—or
dead
of
disappointed
hopes
and
broken
hearts—all gone,
or
nearly all—victims devoted
upon
the
altar
of
the
golden
calf—the
noblest
holocaust
that
ever
wafted
its
sacrificial
incense
heavenward.
It
is
pitiful
to
think
upon.
It
was
a
splendid
population—for
all
the
slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained
sloths
staid
at
home—you
never
find
that
sort
of
people
among
pioneers—you cannot build pioneers
out
of
that
sort
of
material.
It
was
that
population
that
gave
to
California
a
name
for
getting
up
astounding
enterprises
and
rushing
them
through
with
a
magnificent
dash
and
daring
and
a
recklessness
of
cost
or
consequences,
which
she
bears
unto
this
day—and
when
she
projects
a
new
surprise,
the
grave
world
smiles
as
usual,
and
says "Well,
that
is
California
all
over."
But
they
were
rough
in
those
times!
They
fairly
reveled
in
gold, whisky, fights,
and
fandangoes,
and
were
unspeakably happy.
The
honest
miner
raked
from
a
hundred
to
a
thousand
dollars
out
of
his
claim
a day,
and
what
with
the
gambling
dens
and
the
other
entertainments,
he
hadn't a
cent
the
next
morning,
if
he
had
any
sort
of
luck.
They
cooked
their
own
bacon
and
beans,
sewed
on
their
own
buttons,
washed
their
own
shirts—blue woollen ones;
and
if
a
man
wanted a
fight
on
his
hands
without
any
annoying
delay,
all
he
had
to
do
was
to
appear
in
public
in
a
white
shirt
or
a stove-pipe hat,
and
he
would
be
accommodated.
For
those
people
hated
aristocrats.
They
had a
particular
and
malignant
animosity
toward
what
they
called
a "biled shirt."
It
was
a wild, free, disorderly,
grotesque
society! Men—only
swarming
hosts
of
stalwart
men—nothing juvenile,
nothing
feminine,
visible
anywhere!
In
those
days
miners
would
flock
in
crowds
to
catch
a
glimpse
of
that
rare
and
blessed spectacle, a woman!
Old
inhabitants
tell
how,
in
a
certain
camp,
the
news
went
abroad
early
in
the
morning
that
a
woman
was
come!
They
had
seen
a calico dress hanging
out
of
a
wagon
down
at
the
camping-ground—sign
of
emigrants
from
over
the
great
plains. Everybody went
down
there,
and
a shout went
up
when
an
actual,
bona
fide dress
was
discovered
fluttering
in
the
wind!
The
male
emigrant
was
visible.
The
miners
said: "Fetch
her
out!"
He
said: "It
is
my wife, gentlemen—she
is
sick—we
have
been
robbed
of
money, provisions, everything,
by
the
Indians—we
want
to
rest." "Fetch
her
out! We've got
to
see
her!" "But, gentlemen,
the
poor
thing, she—" "FETCH
HER
OUT!"
He
"fetched
her
out,"
and
they
swung
their
hats
and
sent
up
three
rousing
cheers
and
a tiger;
and
they
crowded
around
and
gazed
at
her,
and
touched
her
dress,
and
listened
to
her
voice
with
the
look
of
men
who
listened
to
a
memory
rather
than
a
present
reality—and
then
they
collected
twenty-
five
hundred
dollars
in
gold
and
gave
it
to
the
man,
and
swung
their
hats
again
and
gave
three
more
cheers,
and
went
home
satisfied.
Once
I
dined
in
San Francisco
with
the
family
of
a pioneer,
and
talked
with
his
daughter, a
young
lady
whose
first
experience
in
San Francisco
was
an
adventure,
though
she
herself
did
not
remember
it,
as
she
was
only
two
or
three
years
old
at
the
time.
Her
father said that,
after
landing
from
the
ship,
they
were
walking
up
the
street, a
servant
leading
the
party
with
the
little
girl
in
her
arms.
And
presently a
huge
miner, bearded, belted, spurred,
and
bristling
with
deadly
weapons—just
down
from
a
long
campaign
in
the
mountains, evidently-barred
the
way, stopped
the
servant,
and
stood gazing,
with
a face
all
alive
with
gratification
and
astonishment.
Then
he
said, reverently: "Well,
if
it
ain't
a child!"
And
then
he
snatched a
little
leather
sack
out
of
his
pocket
and
said
to
the
servant: "There's a
hundred
and
fifty
dollars
in
dust, there,
and
I'll
give
it
to
you
to
let
me
kiss
the
child!"
That
anecdote
is
true.
But
see
how
things
change. Sitting
at
that
dinner-table,
listening
to
that
anecdote,
if
I had
offered
double
the
money
for
the
privilege
of
kissing
the
same
child, I
would
have
been refused.
Seventeen
added
years
have
far
more
than
doubled
the
price.
And
while
upon
this
subject
I
will
remark
that
once
in
Star City,
in
the
Humboldt Mountains, I
took
my
place
in
a
sort
of
long, post-office single
file
of
miners,
to
patiently
await
my
chance
to
peep
through
a crack
in
the
cabin
and
get
a sight
of
the
splendid
new
sensation—a genuine,
live
Woman!
And
at
the
end
of
half
of
an
hour
my
turn
came,
and
I
put
my
eye
to
the
crack,
and
there
she
was,
with
one
arm
akimbo,
and
tossing flap-
jacks
in
a frying-pan
with
the
other.
And
she
was
one
hundred
and
sixty-five [Being
in
calmer
mood, now, I voluntarily
knock
off
a
hundred
from
that.—M.T.]
years
old,
and
hadn't a
tooth
in
her
head.