WASHOE REVISITED.

[From J. Ross Browne's Adventures in the Apache Country (1871); Illustrations by the author.]

CHAPTER XXX.

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.

FOUR years ago a series of papers appeared in a popular periodical descriptive of a visit to Washoe, in which the author related some personal experiences of a very remarkable character. So wonderful, indeed, were many of his adventures, that certain incredulous persons, who have no difficulty in believing any thing except the truth, boldly assumed that the entire narrative was a fiction concocted for speculative purposes.

The simple truth was that the author, an ex-Government officer, found himself one fine morning in San Francisco, with an empty purse in his pocket, and saw no remedy but to visit the newly-discovered silver regions, which were then making a prodigious stir among the gunny-bags of Front Street, and the bummers, bankers, and other men of enterprising genius on Montgomery Street. Aided by a commission to explore some mines which had no existence in this world or in the next, he felt assured that he could, by means of an agency and his own speculative talent, speedily indemnify himself for the unprofitable years which he had spent in the public service. In this hopeful state of mind he set forth on his travels. Unable to procure a conveyance at Placerville short of all the money he possessed or could hope to obtain by borrowing, he sturdily shouldered his blankets, and footed it over the mountains—through mud, and snow, and rain, slush, and scathing storms—to the city of Carson, where he arrived in due time, somewhat battered and wayworn by the hardships of the trip.

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It is not my intention to review in detail the wonderful experiences of this adventurer in the land of silver. They will be found in his published narrative, illustrated by authentic wood-cuts. Sufficient is it for my purpose to say that before writing his account of Washoe, and the perils and vicissitudes of life in that region, he deemed it prudent to retire to the continent of Europe. The dreary years of his exile from California he filled up, in some measure, by tours through Spain, Algeria, Germany, Poland, and the regions bordering on the Arctic Circle.

On his return to San Francisco he found, to his astonishment, that the silver mania had taken possession of the entire population, without distinction of age or sex. Washoe and the regions beyond had sprung up into a second California. Gold was nowhere now: it was all silver—above, below, everywhere. Speculation peered into the silvery heavens in search of new lodes; nay, the genius of enterprise pointed toward the regions of ever-lasting woe as an appropriate sphere for the smelting interests. Tons of ore were piled in heaps along the curb-stones in the streets; every office was an emporium for the purchase and sale of feet; every desk in every store was a stall at which millionaires browsed upon paper; every window glared and dazzled the sight with gorgeous engravings of stocks; every man of the hundreds and tens of hundreds that stood at every corner, and in every saloon, and before every bar, carried feet in his pockets and dividends in his eyes; and every walking thing, save horses and dogs and rats and mice, talked stocks and feet from morning till night, and dreamed dividends from night till morning. Young ladies would hear of no proposition from any gentleman with less than a thousand feet; and no gentleman, however ardent, would compromise himself without asking, "Is she on the Wild-Cat or Legitimate? How many pay feet does she offer? and what assessments are due on her?" Passing a crowd," Reese River" was poured into' one ear, and "Humboldt" into the other. "Washoe!" "Esmeralda!" "Arizona!" "Sonora!" "Struck it rich!"

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(Click on image to enlarge)

Silver bricks!" and "Pay rock!" hummed and drummed through the air till the brain was nearly addled.

No wonder our adventurer, just from the wilds of Russia and Iceland, was bewildered. Of the various tongues spoken by the various races of the earth whom he had encountered in his travels this was the most dif-

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ficult to comprehend, and the most foreign to his ear and understanding. The very newspapers which he attempted to read furnished snatches of information that filled him with amazement: "Uncle Sam" was lively; "Yellow Jacket" was scarcely so firm, owing to a difficulty with the Union; "Lady Bryan" was in better repute, at advanced rates, and was still in active demand; "The Savage " was quiet but strong, at rising figures; "Buckeye" was languishing; "Hope" had revived, and sales were made yesterday at $8; "Josephine" was firmer at the close, and much sought for; "Wide West" was drooping and heavy at $80; "Burning Moscow" was unusually brisk; and "Sierra Nevada" had a downward tendency.

How in the world was any sane man to comprehend the state of things when the meaning of terms was changed, and the order of nomenclature wholly disarranged? A few days, however, enabled our adventurer to catch some drift from the general current of conversation. It was evident that fortunes of extraordinary dimensions were to be made over the mountains—made suddenly, certainly, and without capital, which was precisely the most convenient thing in the world for a man who had just scattered his means all over the world. "Yes!" said he, enthusiastically, "I'll go to Washoe! I'll pitch in for feet this time! You bet I'll seize a few of those glittering bricks, and build my castles upon a solid foundation hereafter!"

It was quietly hinted, however, by friends solicitous of his welfare, that he had better not show himself in Washoe again, if he placed any value upon his life or the general stability of his constitution. The reasons assigned for this advice were startling and multifarious. It was alleged that the road was lined with blood-thirsty men armed with pistols, doubled-barrelled shot-guns, clubs, pitchforks, bowie-knives, and axes, every one of whom was on the lookout for a solitary pedestrian who had passed over the mountains three years before, and

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damaged their reputation by various slanders in the public prints. Especial mention was made of a ferocious Irishman, by the name of " Dirty Mike," who was watching near the crossing of the American River, with a tremendous shillelah in his right hand and a copy of Harper's Magazine in his left; and it was asserted that if the said Michael ever laid eyes upon the author of the Washoe papers he would speedily show which of the two carried upon his person the greater share of his mother earth.

Further on, in Hope Valley, there was a solitary man who lived, like Diogenes in his tub, having only a ferocious bull-dog as a companion. These two—Diogenes and his dog—had been chiefly occupied during the past three years in gloating over the anticipated re-appearance of "the fellow that showed them up in print." The slur upon the cabin might be forgiven; but that villainous likeness of "him and Bull" was only to be wiped out by blood. Yes—he'd offer that fellow fox-skins to eat again—he would. You bet he'd spoil his appetite. Ef he didn't you could discount the bill at your own price!

Bad as all this was, it was nothing to compare with the hints of retribution that came floating over the Sierras from Virginia City, the Devil's Gate, and Carson. Here were some thousands of excited men, accustomed to the use of fire-arms from infancy, who had invested largely in the Love's Delight, Sorrowful Countenance, Pious Wretch, Literary Cuss, and other valuable claims of a kindred character—all awaiting, with stern resolution and ill-suppressed rage, the coming of this diabolical quill-driver, who had so basely ruined their mines and blasted all their prospects. Many thousands of people had no other idea of Washoe than what they gathered from these ridiculous caricatures, which were a monstrous fabrication from beginning to end. The tide of capital from the Atlantic States was arrested before it ever got a start from Wall Street. Capitalists in

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San Francisco were scared out of their boots. Stocks in the most valuable lodes went down a thousand per cent. It may. have been a very good joke to perpetrate upon the honest miners, but it certainly gave a back-set to Washoe of more than two years. And now it was hinted that this rattle-brained scribbler, this miserable ink-jerker, was about to become a candidate for Congress from the Territory of Nevada! Let him beware of the vengeance of an outraged public! He had better give Carson, and Silver City, and the Devil's Gate, and Virginia a wide berth in his future travels!

Such were a few of the grave considerations under which I surveyed the prospect of revisiting Washoe

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for you must have already discovered, dear reader, that the writer of these sketches is no other than the disreputable personage above referred to. Held accountable by divers bodies of exasperated men for all the disasters that had occurred on the other side of the mountains during the past three years, and credited by none of the fortunes made, it was due to the great cause of justice that I should go over and set myself right, or gloriously die in the attempt.

With this much in the way of introduction, I shall proceed to give you a detailed narrative of my experiences, in the course of which it will be seen that various and magical changes have taken place in the mining regions of Washoe. Indeed when I look back at what Virginia City was at the time of my first visit—a city of sage-bushes, mud hovels, coyote-boles, gunny-bags, flour-sacks, and tattered blankets, wherein dwelt a population the most motley and incongruous ever gathered together by the force of silver and circumstances—when I think of the multifarious ledges then in the progress of development, and see what has since been done, and what promise there is in the future, I feel precisely as Lord Clive did at the bar of the British Parliament—astonished at my own moderation. The marvel of it is that I carried away so little treasure where there was so much staring me in the face. I wonder how it was I ever told half so much truth, and left so heavy a balance still to be told.

In announcing to certain experienced friends my purpose of revisiting Washoe I was somewhat startled by such questions as these: Is your neck insured by a responsible company? Are you subject to giddiness in the head? How often have your ribs been broken before? Are you accustomed to fractures of the legs and arms? And what provision have you made for the maintenance of your family in case a miscellaneous bullet should strike you through the bowels and lodge in your backbone? Which I understood to mean, in gen-

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eral terms, that a certain percentage of travellers who went over the grade did so head-foremost, with a stage or two on top of them, and that the state of society in Virginia City had not improved in a moral point of view.

CHAPTER XXXI.

CROSSING THE SIERRAS.

I WAS about to hire a private vehicle, when, fortunately, I met a friend who had just come over by the Henness Pass. This gentleman travelled in a buggy for comfort and convenience. At a narrow pass on the way he had encountered a stage, and to avoid being run over had turned out of the grade, but never stopped turning till himself and his buggy, and the horses that pulled the buggy, together with all his provisions, blankets, deeds, mortgages, lists of mines, rolls of assessments, and schedules of dividends were piled in a confused heap at the bottom of a cañon some five hundred feet deep by several thousand feet wide. I say this was a fortunate occurrence, as it afforded me good ground for travelling by the ordinary modes of conveyance, which I have generally found to be about as safe as any other.

Of the trip to Sacramento it is needless to say much. Most people in San Francisco have tried that at least once or twice in their lives. If ever they derived any pleasure from it they accomplished more than I did. Two hours in a chilling wind, during which you partake of a hasty dinner and smoke a cigar, finds you at the Benicia wharf, the steamer fretting and fuming with suppressed steam, crowds, pouring in and crowds moving out, and a great many people gathered about the premises, without any ostensible occupation save to be on hand in case something should turn up. When there happens to be no opposition on the line you may escape collision or explosion; but your chances are very small indeed of ever reaching your destination in the event of

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a rival steamer being on the route. In this country it is a common practice to fight duels with steamboats. Difficulties between captains are settled by steam. The boilers are charged to the bursting point, and the hostile parties, accustomed to the use of steamboats from infancy, manage their weapons with such skill that an effective crash, accompanied by the shrieks of maimed and scalded passengers, is the usual result.

Upon entering the Sacramento River the air becomes softer and warmer, and good-natured travellers who have been up and down a great many times point out the trees in which families of women and children roosted a few years ago when the flood swept away the houses. But many houses still remain, although the effects of the flood are visible all along the banks of the river.

About midnight the steamer, if she be well freighted, as is generally the case, runs aground on the Hog's Back and there sticks fast till morning. Passengers who have secured rooms and berths usually avail themselves of the opportunity thus afforded to lay in a supply of sleep for the journey across the mountains; and passengers who can not procure rooms or berths enjoy the privilege of sitting up in chairs carefully secured to the floors, as a precaution against theft; or spending the night in the lower saloon at a game of sledge or poker, by which means they usually travel with heavy heads and light pockets the next day. The Hog's Back is responsible for a vast deal of trouble. I have seen many hogs in my day, but never so great a bore as this.

Arrived at length in Sacramento, a hasty breakfast of water bewitched and coffee begrudged, leathery beef-steak and saleratus slightly corrected with flour, refreshes the inner man; trunks and knapsacks are vindictively hurled into the baggage-car of the Folsom train; the whistle blows; the passengers rush frantically into the cars and bestow themselves on the seats without regard to order; and the locomotive frets and fizzes on its iron way to Folsom.

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In some respects the progress of California is without parallel in the history of the world. The developments of wealth in the mining regions, the rapid growth of towns and cities, and the wonderful advancement of the agricultural interests, present some of the most remarkable examples of industry, energy and enterprise on record. Yet it must be admitted that if California can challenge

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the world in these respects, it falls very far short of the general advancement of the times in some others. A stranger coming directly from Europe, or even from the Atlantic States, can not but be unfavorably impressed by the absence of railway communications between the most important points, and the extraordinary apathy manifested in regard to almost every kind of internal improvement. There are few countries in the world so well adapted to railways, and certainly none with a larger amount of trade compared with its population; yet during a period of fourteen years there has been, until within the last few years, but a single railroad in operation in the State, and that a very imperfect one, of very little general use as it stands, extending a distance of only 22 miles from Sacramento to Folsom. It is true there is now a small patch of railroad extending from Marysville to the vicinity of Oroville; also a line between San Francisco and San Jose; and a few miles of rail attached to the Oakland Ferry; besides some city lines, which can scarcely be estimated in the category of railroads. The total aggregate, exclusive of the Pacific Railroad, does not probably exceed 250 miles. This is but a small advance for a State sprung almost full-grown into existence fourteen years ago, abounding in resources unequalled by those of any other State in the Union.

The truth of the matter is, we are a wonderfully fast people in California, but not a far-seeing people. Even in Europe, where people are proverbially slow, they are not so blind to their own interests on the subject of railways. Within the same period of fourteen years their railway systems have been extended over nearly every habitable portion of the Continent, and the consequence has been a marked revolution in trade, commerce and travel. Property has everywhere increased in value, and the wages of labor have enjoyed a corresponding advance. In the Atlantic States, up to the commencement of the rebellion, the progress of our railways excited the astonishment and admiration of the world. But in Califor-

306 WASHOE REVISITED.

nia, which abounds in vast tracts of level country, inexhaustible mineral wealth, and the most productive of agricultural lands on the face of the globe, with a population the most energetic and intelligent, we have done comparatively nothing in this respect. A great deal of talk has taken place, and the halls of our Legislature have resounded with magniloquent speeches on the subject, but the rails have not been laid. California has been very much like the unfortunate goose that laid the golden eggs—disembowelled for her treasures, but never cherished for the good that is in her and the treasures she is capable of yielding in the future. Even to this day there is not the interest felt in the permanent welfare of the State which should prevail among her people. Sudden and extraordinary excitements have been the rule rather than the exception. We have had gold manias and silver manias and ranch manias and fruit manias, and all other sorts of manias, till it really seems as if nothing could be done without a special insanity, risking all to the wild excitement of the moment. If our people had risked half as much and displayed half the energy in building up the true and permanent interests of the State, they would now be better off; the rewards of industry would be placed upon a more reliable basis, and the aggregate wealth of the country would stand at a much higher figure than it does now. Such, however, is the character of our people, and no amount of preaching will have any effect. Many years must elapse and many thousands of our citizens must be ruined before the ordinary rewards of industry will be a sufficient incentive to enterprise in this State. So long as individual aggrandizement is the ruling motive of action, so long as every thing is cast aside in the hope of securing sudden wealth without labor, we must be content to live a kind of gambling life, with many ups and downs and but a small average of prosperity compared with our vast and extraordinary resources.

I could not perceive that much improvement had taken

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place on the route, unless, indeed, a few additional bar-rooms be accounted in that light. The town of Folsom itself has grown somewhat within the past four years, in consequence of the trade passing through it on the way to Washoe. New brick houses have been built on the main street in the vicinity of the depot, and some pleasant little cottages, embowered in flowers and shrubbery, adorn the surrounding slopes. The chief marts of business, as usual in these inland towns, are the express-offices, clothing-stores, and drinking-saloons: Every other house seems to be a house of entertainment, in which the public are feasted on billiards and whisky. Teaming and staging are the grand features of enterprise in this lively little place, and teamsters and stage-drivers the most prominent public characters. The language spoken by this class of the population is a mixture of horse, mule, and ox, with a strong human infusion of blasphemy. Something perhaps in the difficulties and vexations that beset their occupation gives them rather a ferocious expression of countenance, and it is not always an easy matter to mollify the asperities of their nature.

As most passengers desire to get an outside seat, except when it rains, it is highly important that you should proceed at once to secure the favorable consideration of the superintendent, who is a gentleman of great suavity and politeness, considering his position. Should you fail in that, I warn you not to climb up on the fore-wheel with any hope of getting the seat of honor alongside the driver; for whether you be a Minister plenipotentiary or a member of the Common Council he will exercise the right pertaining to his craft—order you down, and then enjoy, your discomfiture for a distance of ten miles. I have seen respectable men cling to the front railing of stages, with their feet uneasily balanced on the fore-wheels, for over half an hour--men worth probably fifty thousand dollars in stocks—and then seen them fail—utterly, miserably, and ingloriously fail—to get a seat. I have seen drivers of stages laugh and chuckle by the hour

308 WASHOE REVISITED.

with some sympathizing chum picked up at the last moment; and I have heard these despotic men say they had a good notion to let every body ride on top, for then the stage would be pretty certain to capsize and break a few legs and arms. Why stage-drivers, who are paid a liberal stipend per month for putting passengers over the public highways, should be so vindictively hostile to the travelling community surpasses my comprehension.

The scene on the arrival of the cars is quite inspiring. Stages backed up in a long row; prancing horses in front; swearing and sweating porters, baggage-masters, drivers, and passengers all about and behind; John Chinamen, with long tails rolled up on the backs of their heads, running distractedly through the crowd in search of their lost bundles; anxious ladies, prolific in crinoline and gorgeous in silks and satins (the California travelling costume), fretting and scolding over crushed bandboxes; and stern-looking men of an official cast of countenance shouting, fiercely, "This way, gents! 'Ere's the place for your baggage! Bring it along if you want it weighed; if you don't, it won't go—that's all!" And there is the machine that weighs, and there stands the inexorable gentleman that marks off the weights—ten, forty, sixty, ninety pounds per passenger—thirty pounds allowed; all extra baggage twenty-five cents per pound. "Fifteen dollars for you, Sir." "Twenty-five for you, Sir." "Forty-six for you, Madam." "Seventy-five for you, Miss—heavy trunk that, Miss." "Oh dear! oh goodness gracious! must I pay seventy-five dollars for my trunk?" "Yes, Miss—sorry for it—no getting over it." "Oh!" "Quick, if you please, ladies and gents! Stages behind time—won't get to Placerville before dark!" "Your names, gents." "Smith, Jones, Brown, Johnson." "All aboard!," and off goes stage No. 1. "Pile in, gents. Get down from the front seat, you, Sir—place engaged. All aboard!" and off goes stage No. 2. "Henness? Placerville? Dammit, why didn't you say so?" "Johnson, Brown, Jones, Smith." "Pitch in, Cap—all set!"

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and stage No. 3 follows through the dusty clouds that cover the road and the hill-sides. And so on till we are all fairly in and off, and looking back, with fervent thanks to Providence that we are clear of the smoke and trouble and turmoil of the railroad depot at Folsom.

It is always pleasant to make a start; yet if any body can say the road from Folsom to Placerville is an agreeable road to travel in the early part of October, before the autumn showers have commenced, he must be fond of dust, and ruts, and hills, and plenty of warm sunshine. As for the dust—whew!

With a gentle breeze behind; the horses' ears dimly

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perceptible in front; curling clouds rising up at every step and imbedding the stage with its sneezing, gasping, suffocating human freight as in a chaotic bank of pulverized earth without top, bottom, or sides; your face smeared with red, yellow, and black stripes of sweat and mud; your nostrils stuffed with a pasty conglomerate; your hair turned prematurely gray; your eye-lashes blinking with a feathery fringe-work of native soil; your lungs surcharged with gold, porphyry, sulphurets and all the indications that predominate in a mineral region—I say, if you can enjoy this sort of thing, you are fit to travel to Washoe or any other country. You are part and parcel of California, worth very nearly your weight in gold. Put you through the hydraulic process after your arrival at Placerville, and your washings are worth $14 per ounce. Pan you out, and two dollars a pan would be a low estimate of your intrinsic value. In fact I am told the hotel-keepers are growing rich on this single source of profit. Each hotel keeps a kind of sluice or washing arrangement in the back-room, through which the travellers by stage are immediately put on their arrival; and judging by the accumulations in the bottoms of the basins, I should say every man leaves behind him pay dirt of a very rich quality. For my part, I paid my fare, and positively refused to wash: Why should a man impoverish himself in this way for the benefit of tavern-keepers? His dust is worth as much to himself as it is to any other man, and he certainly has the best claim to it.

As we heard the cry of Washoe in early times, so we now heard the cry of Reese River. Every body and his uncle, cousin, brother, and son-in-law was gone or going to Reese. The streets and shops of Placerville were crowded with Reese River goods, Reese River wagons, Reese River croppings, and Reese River notices of various kinds. Nothing was dreamed of in the philosophy of the busy multitude but Reese River.

It was 5 o'clock P.M., just three hours after the usual time, thanks to the Hog's Back, when we took our places

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on the stages, and girded up our loins for the trip across the mountains. I was the lucky recipient of an outside seat. The seat of honor, by the side of that exalted dignitary the driver, was accorded me by the "polite and gentlemanly agent." The driver was Charlie. Of course every body knows Charlie—that same Old Charlie who has driven all over the roads in California, and never capsized any body but himself. On that occasion he broke several of his ribs, or as he expressed it to me, "Bust his sides in." I was proud and happy to sit by the side of Charlie—especially as the road was supposed to be a little undulating even by its best friends. Possibly I may have travelled over worse roads than the first ten miles out of Placerville. If so, they must have been in Iceland; for there are not

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many quite so bad on the continent of North America. I speak of what the road was at the close of summer, cut up by heavy teams, a foot deep with dust, and abounding in holes and pitfalls big enough to swallow a thousand stages and six thousand horses without inconvenience to itself. There are places, over which we passed after dark, where I am sure the road is three miles wide, and every acre of it a model stage-trap; where it branches off over hills, and along the sides of hills, and into deep cañons, and up hills again; dark, dismal places in the midst of great forests of pine, where the horses seem to be eternally plunging over precipices and the stage following them with a crashing noise, horribly suggestive of cracked skulls and broken bones. But I had implicit confidence in Old Charlie. The way he handled the reins and peered through the clouds of dust and volumes of darkness, and saw trees and stumps and boulders of rock and horses' ears, when I could scarcely see my own hand before me, was a miracle of stage-driving. "Git aeoup!" was the warning cry of this old stager. "Git alang, my beauties!" was the natural outpouring of the poetry that filled his capacious soul.

"Do many people get killed on this route?" said I to Charlie, as we made a sudden lurch in the dark and bowled along the edge of a fearful precipice.

"Nary a kill that I know of. Some of the drivers mashes 'em once in a while, but that's whisky or bad drivin'. Last summer a few stages went over the grade, but nobody was hurt bad—only a few legs'n arms broken. Them was opposition stages. Pioneer stages, as a genr'l thing, travels on the road. Git aeoup!"

"Is it possible? Why, I have read horrible stories of the people crushed to death going over these mountains!"

"Very likely—they kill 'em quite lively on the Henness route. Git alang, my beauties! Drivers only break their legs a little on this route; that is, some of the opposition boys did it last summer; but our company's very strict;

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they won't keep drivers, as a genr'l thing, that gets drunk and mashes up stages. Git aeoup, Jake! Git alang, Mack! 'Twon't pay; 'tain't a good investment for man nor beast. A stage is worth more'n two thousand dollars, and legs costs heavy besides. You Jake, git!"

How in the world can you see your way through this dust?"

"Smell it. Fact is, I've travelled over these mountains so often I can tell where the road is by the sound of the wheels. When they rattle I'm on hard ground; when they don't rattle I gen'r'lly look over the side to see where she's agoing."

"Have you any other signs?"

"Backer's another sign; when I'm a little skeer'd I chaw more'n ordinary. Then I know the road's bad."

"Don't you get tired driving over the same road so often?"

"Well, I do—kalklate to quit the business next trip. I'm getting well on in years, you see, and don't like it so well as I used to, afore I was busted in!"

"How long have you driven stage?"

"Nigh on to thirty years, an' I'm no better off now than when I commenced. Pay's small; work heavy; gettin' old; rheumatism in the bones; nobody to look out for used-up stage-drivers; kick the bucket one of these days, and that's the last of Old Charlie."

"Why, you must have made plenty of friends during so long a career of staging?"

"Oh yes, plenty of 'em; see 'em to-day, gone to-morrow! Git alang!"

And so passed the long hours of the night, Charlie and I gossiping pleasantly about the risks and charms, and mysteries of the stage-driving profession. A hard life is that of the stage-driver; a life of exposure and peril, and wear and tear, such as few other men experience in this world. You, my good friend, who cross the Sierras of California once or twice in a life-time, imagine you have done great things—you boast of your qualities as a travel-

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ler; you have passed unscathed through the piercing night air; have scarcely shuddered at the narrow bridges, or winced at the fearful precipices. You have braved all the dangers of the trip, and can afford to slap yourself complacently on the leg in proof of the fact that you are still sound. But think of old Charlie! He has crossed the mountains a thousand times; crossed when the roads were at their worst; by night and by day; in storm and gloom and darkness; through snow and sleet and rain, and burning suns and dust; back and forth; subject to the risks of different teams and different stages; his life balanced on the temper of a horse or the strength of a screw. This is a career worthy the consideration of the heedless world! Who thinks of old Charlie? Where is the gazette to herald his achievements? What pen is there to trumpet his praises?

All hail to thee, Old Charlie! Never shall it be said that ingratitude is one of my vices. Here, in these illuminated pages your name shall be rescued from oblivion. Sweet and gentle ladies shall pay the tribute of admiration to your manly features; and honest men shall award you honor, to whom honor is due. For in the vicissitudes of my career have I not found brave and sterling qualities in all classes of men; heroes whose names are never known; hearts and souls, human affections, and the fear of God in the bodies of stage-drivers?

Thus I think and moralize as we approach the grade. The bad road is at an end. We strike in upon the smooth broad highway, and dash onward with a feeling of absolute relief. The horses' hoofs clatter merrily on the hard, gravelly earth. The tall pines form a magnificent avenue through which the moon begins to glimmer, making a fretwork of silvery light on the backs of our noble animals.

Yet I must confess the trip to Washoe has, to me at least, lost much of its original charm. No longer is the way variegated by long strings of pedestrians, carrying

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their picks, shovels, and blankets upon their backs; no longer are the stopping-places crowded every night with two or three hundred adventurers inspired by visionary thoughts of the future; no longer are the wild mountain passes enlivened by grotesque scenes of saddle-trains and passengers struggling through the mud and snow; it is all now a regular and established line of travel; too civilized to be interesting in any great degree, and too convenient to admit of those charming discomforts which formerly afforded us so much amusement. Only think how the emigrants who crossed these mountains in 1848 would have stared at the bare suggestion of a Pioneer stage-line. If we are behind the times in railroads, it is certain there is no such country in the world for feats of horse-flesh as California. The length of our stage routes, the rapidity with which we travel upon them, and the facilities afforded by our expresses, are matters of astonishment to the people of Europe, who have not the faintest idea of the real difficulties to be overcome in carrying such enterprises into effect in a wild country like ours. During my sojourn in Germany I received a letter from California by Pony Express in less than four weeks after it was written; and it was not until I showed the date and express-stamp and carefully explained the whole matter that I was enabled to overcome the incredulity of my Teutonic friends. The idea of such a feat being accomplished by horse-flesh was something they could not comprehend. Nor could they quite reconcile to their notions of the practicable that we had spanned the continent with our stages—crossing deserts and mountains, from San Francisco to Missouri, as they would cross the cultivated plains and well-graded hills of their native country. But their astonishment was still more excited when I read a dispatch received from San Francisco in just fourteen days! The telegraph line had outstripped the ponies, and time was annihilated between the East and the West! "Oh," said they, when convinced there was no joke about it, "you are indebted

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to the Germans for that. The magnetic telegraph was invented by a German forty years ago."

"Then, why didn't he put it in operation forty years ago, and let the world enjoy the benefit of it?" was my answer. "Because," said they, "he was too poor to do it himself, and could find nobody to believe in it who was able to assist him. He presented his plan to the Government, but the idea was ridiculed and Government would have nothing to do with it."

I could not but think that there was very little to boast of in this—even supposing it to be true. It certainly argued poorly for the sagacity of the people in Europe, or the intelligence of the Governments, that an American should be the first to establish in their own country an invention claimed by them, and now indispensable to the civilized world. I must say this much, however—for nothing is further from my thoughts than to depreciate the German character—that the education, skill, and intellect of this people have contributed largely to the progress and prosperity of our country. Indeed, they are now a part of ourselves, and what reflects credit upon them reflects credit upon us all as a nation.

The approach to the crossing of the American River is indescribably grand. Here the grade takes a downward plunge, and here the scenery becomes truly Alpine. Formerly the descent was made on the right side of the ridge. Wonderful improvements, however, have taken place in the grades of this road during the past few years, chiefly owing to the enterprise of Mr. Louis M'Lane, President of the Pioneer Stage Company. In 1860, as already stated, I travelled over this part of the country on foot, in common with some thousands of adventurers, equally independent of horse-flesh. I then enjoyed the scenery of the American River, for I saw it by the early morning, when the mountains were decked in all the glories of spring; when torrents of snow-water

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burst from every ravine, and fell thundering into the depths below, and limpid springs made a pleasant music over the moss-covered rocks by the way-side; when the sun's rays glimmered through the dripping trees, and the air was fragrant with the odor of wild flowers. But I had never till now been impressed with an adequate sense of its beauties. How calm and still the night was! how exquisitely balmy the air! how sublime the repose of these grand old mountains! I thought of all the scenes I had witnessed in other countries, yet could not recall anything to surpass this. There is something in the mystic lights and shades, and the profound solemnity of the night, which lends an awful sublimity to these wild regions. The gigantic forest -trees standing in bold outline on the opposite sides of the mountains, seem to pierce the sky; and the moonbeams, pouring down into the mysterious abyss through which the river dashes, fringe the tops of the pines, as far down as the eye can reach, with a frost-like drapery. Nothing can be more thrilling than the descent of the grade by moonlight. The road is a magnificent piece of engineering—smooth, broad, and beautifully regular.

Imagine yourself seated in front of the stage, by the side of that genial old whipster, Charlie, who knows every foot of the way, and upon whom you can implicitly rely for the safety of your life and limbs. Holding the reins with a firm hand, and casting a penetrating eye ahead, he cracks his whip, and away go the horses with inspiring velocity—six magnificent chestnuts, superbly adorned with flowing manes and tails. The stillness of the night is pleasantly broken by their measured tread, and the rattle of the wheels over the gravel echoes through the wild rifts and openings of the cañon like a voice from the civilized world telling of human enterprise. Down, and still down, we plunge into the gloomy depths of the abyss; the ghostly forms of trees looming up on our left; to the right, rising far beyond the range of vision, the towering heights of the Sierras; and ever and anon yawning gulfs

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in front and bottomless pits of darkness still threatening to devour. The road turns and winds like a serpent, sometimes apparently running into a huge bank of granite boulders, then whirling suddenly, and plunging into a shimmering wilderness of rocks and trees, where destruction seems inevitable. Yet onward dash the horses, with an instinct so admirable in its precision that it seems for the time superior to human intelligence. They never swerve from the track; through the fretwork of light and darkness they pursue their way with unrivalled ease and grace; sweeping around the narrow turns; now coursing along on the extreme edge of the precipice, or closely hugging the upper bank as the road winds to the right or the left; now plunging down and whirling with marvellous sagacity over the narrow bridges that span the ravines, often where there is neither rail nor post to mark the way, ever true to the slightest touch of the reins, and ever obedient to the voice of their driver. Is it a wonder that Old Charlie loves his horses and talks of his teams with a kind of paternal affection—that he knows them by heart, and holds converse with them through the long watches of the night as with human friends?

I have attempted to give some idea of the romantic beauties of these mountain regions and the peculiar wildness of the scenery; but it must be conceded that nature has not been permitted to lie wholly undisturbed in the immediate vicinity of the road. There is probably not an acre of ground, possessing a water privilege, on the entire route between Placerville and Virginia City, which has not been taken up and settled upon by some enterprising squatter or speculator, whose views of the present necessities of trade and the future prosperity of Nevada invest this region of country with an extraordinary value. When I travelled over the road in the spring of 1860 there were symptoms of rapid progress. Tents and shanties were springing up all along the way-side; and if the weary pedestrian could get nothing else, he

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could at least always be sure of whisky, even where the houses had neither walls nor roofs. If lodgings were scarce, bedfellows were plenty; if there was trouble in keeping the outer man warm, there was abundance of fuel for the inner man. For this reason, perhaps, it was not an uncommon thing to see the sturdy adventurers who were on their way to the silver regions quite elevated by the time they reached the summit; and if they got sober again, it must have been after they had invested their last dollar in some of those flourishing leads which prevail around Carson and the Devil's Gate.

The state of things is now very different. Good and substantial taverns, well supplied with provisions, beds, fleas, bugs, etc., to say nothing of the essential article of whisky, are to be met with at intervals of every two or three miles all along the route. Here the stages stop, and here the horses are watered and changed; and here the drivers and passengers get down and stretch their legs, but as a general thing they don't indulge so much in water as the horses.

A great many able-bodied men, very dirty, and a good deal oftener drunk than sober, hang about the bars and front doors of these establishments, conversing in a style peculiar to a large class of our inhabitants—that is to say, swearing horribly at things in general. I don't know why it is that people swear so hard in some parts of California. Every other word is an oath. In fact, oaths have become embodied in our language as an essential part of it. Ordinary words possess no meaning to men of this class unless accompanied by some profane appeal to the Deity—so that an unsophisticated traveller like myself, unaccustomed to such a strong style of language, is frequently misled as to the purport of the conversation, and naturally imagines that people who indulge in such a shocking mode of expression must be furiously angry, and will presently pull out their knives or pistols and begin to kill each other. I have heard men relate the most trivial incidents, with such a torrent of impre-

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cations, that I looked with amazement to see what there was in the matter to provoke them so unreasonably, or arouse their resentment to such a pitch of ferocity. The other day one of the stage drivers, boasting of a new whip-handle which a friend had presented to him, cursed it in a manner so shocking, as the best piece of hickory he had ever seen, that I was absolutely afraid he would swear the hat off his head. Now, if this vigorous mode of expression is to prevail in California and our new territories—for I notice that men of character and education are adopting it extensively—would it not be well to expunge from our school-books those tame, trite, and meaningless words which have hitherto formed the staple of the English language in civilized communities? Let us have at least one common language in which we can all communicate our thoughts. As it becomes fashionable it will cease to be profane; and then, only imagine the luxury of swearing at our best friends! The lover, instead of whispering honeyed nothings to the object of his adoration, can blast her eyes under the fiery inspiration of his passion; and she, the gentle and the beautiful, can tenderly turn to him and stop the flood-gates of his despair with such a soothing little dam of affection as to render him completely happy for the remainder of his days. These hints I throw out especially for the benefit of our public men, who wield an influence in the community, and who seek to obtain popular favor by adopting popular modes of expression. It will be an advantage to ladies in crossing over the mountains and settling down in new territories to have their ears cultivated to the standard of the prevailing language—otherwise they may be a little shocked at what seems to be a general looseness of style. For my part I have long since given up the hope of reaching Congress by adapting myself to the popular taste. I dislike shedding blood --can't drink whisky as a standard beverage, and have no talent for swearing. But there are plenty of men in the country of sufficiently vigorous constitution to stand

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these tests of merit, and fully and fairly represent us in the national councils.

As we approached Strawberry, I am free to admit that I became somewhat nervous. A lurking suspicion took possession of me that I was recognized by the driver, Old Charlie; though I took particular pains to join with

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him in abusing that vile slanderer Ross Browne, whose Peep at Washoe had aroused the indignation of every publican on the route. Charlie admitted that he had never read any of this fellow's productions, but he believed him to be the Prince of Liars on general principles; an assertion in which I naturally coincided, with an internal reservation that it was strange how angry it made people to have the truth told about them. "Lord, Lord, Charlie," said I, handing him a cigar, "how this world is given to lying!" By this time we were at Strawberry, and I saw that I had to face the music.

The story goes that there was once upon a time a man named Berry, who located a claim in a pleasant little flat about eight miles from the summit of the mountain. Here he set up his shanty, seeing with a prophetic eye that it would soon become an important point for the accommodation of travellers on the way over to Carson. When the people of California were seized with the silver mania, and began to crowd up the slopes of the Sierras with their teams and pack-trains, their picks, shovels, and blankets, Berry's became a great stopping-place, and his house, which he speedily enlarged, a famous resort for travellers; and this Berry soon became a very rich Berry. His dinners were excellent; his suppers without reproach; his beds as good as any on the road; his whisky as sure to kill at any given range as the best Port Townsend; and altogether he was a popular and a flourishing Berry. But as teams crowded around his premises and supplies of hay were cut off by storms and bad roads, he was forced to offer straw to his customers as a substitute for the regular horse and mule feed. Of course he charged hay prices, for even straw has a hay value under certain circumstances. Now the teamsters when they got straw in place of hay waxed unreasonably wroth, and called this excellent old Berry STRAW-BERRY—a name to which lot all homage be rendered. By this honored name goes to this day that famous stopping-place known to the travelling public as Strawberry.

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I deemed it prudent, however, not to avow my name on the occasion of my present visit. It was 10 o'clock when we arrived. Covered with dust; beard, eyebrows, and hair a motley gray; hat, coat, shirt, trowsers, and boots the same color; face all striped and piebald, I was effectually disguised. If any body was there who had ever seen me before he could not have recognized me now with a microscope. I walked all about the old room with the fire-place—familiar, yet changed—looked calmly at every body about the premises, and stood with my back to the fire while the horses were being changed, with a delightful consciousness of security. In the darkness of night I had escaped Dirty Mike, and now, amid the curious and penetrating crowd at Strawberry, not a soul knew me!

The improvements at Strawberry are not to be slighted. A fine hotel now adjoins the old building; a telegraph-office affords conveniences for stock-jobbing and catching thieves; handsome rooms are to be had merely for the asking; spring beds invite the wayfarer to repose; the dining-room, billiard-saloon, and bar would do credit to Virginia City, or any other civilized community, where men eat, gamble, and drink spirituous liquors; the out-buildings are numerous and capacious; the stables fit for the most aristocratic horses; the hay no longer a subject of reproach to man nor beast, the straw as good as ever bore grain—O, Straw-Berry!

"All aboard!"—a new voice, a new face, and a new driver. I bade good-bye to Charlie, and hoped we might meet again in the next world, if not in this. Once more we are on our way. The road over the mountain from Strawberry has been greatly improved. It is now a magnificent highway. Formerly the ascent to the summit was difficult and dangerous. The rise is now so beautifully graded as to be scarcely appreciable. Our horses trotted along briskly nearly the whole way. The scenery becomes weird and stern as we approach the highest altitude of the Sierras. The trees are scraggy;

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the earth is barren and of a whitish cast; great boulders of rock rear their hoary crests high over the way-side, threatening to topple over and crush all beneath them, Sometimes huge masses of rock seem detached from the main body of the slope or cliff around which the road-winds, and balanced on a mere point—thousands of tons of solid stone, ready apparently at the slightest vibration of the earth or puff of wind to come crashing down upon the stage. At some of these points I deeply sympathized with a gentleman from San Francisco, of whom the driver spoke in terms of ridicule.

"He was so 'fraid them rocks 'll be shook loose and fall on his head, he kept a dodgin' 'em all the time. His hair stood right up like a hog's brussels. Every now and then he was peerin' around for a soft spot of road to jump out on; an' when he seed he couldn't find it, he held on to the railin' with both hands till his fingers wos all blistered. ` D-d driver,' sez he, ` d'ye think there's any danger?' ` Danger?' sez I—' ov course there's danger! Supposing that 'ere rock was shook loose by the rattlin' ov this 'ere stage—what d'ye think 'ud be the consequences?' 'I r-r-really can't say,' sez he; ` p-p-possibly it would crush the stage!' ' No,' sez I, `it wouldn't crush it; but it 'ud make sich a d—d squash of it that bones wouldn't count. Your bones an' my bones, an' the bones ov three passengers above an' four behind an' nine down below, 'ud be all squashed, an' the verdic of Corners Inquest 'ud be —"Eighteen men, six horses an' a Pioneer Stage squashed by the above stone!" ' D-d-driver,' sez he—his teeth a-chatterin' like a box o' dice—' is that so?' `You bet,' sez I; ' the last time I see it done, three ladies an' ten gents from Frisco was squashed.' 'Good gracious!' sez he, turnip' as white as a. sheet, ` let me down at the next station. And sure 'nuff he got down at the next station and made tracks for Frisco. He changed his base--he did. Git aeoup!"

"Is that true, driver?"

"True?"—and the indignant look with which my

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friend of the whip resented the question satisfied me that it would not be prudent to push my doubts too far—so I qualified the inquiry—"Is it on the square, I mean?"

"Stranger," said he, solemnly, "I don't make a habit o' lyin'; when I lie I kin lie as good as any body; but gen'r'lly speakin' I'm on the square."

"Of course—that's all right; that's just what I mean; you don't usually steer clear of facts when the 'truth is strange—stranger than fiction.' Won't you take a cigar, driver?"

"Don't care if I do."

And thus the dawning difficulty was amicably adjusted.

Owing to our late start we did not reach the summit

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before two o'clock. The air at this elevation was sharp, though not unpleasantly so. The altitude is estimated at eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. Frost was on the ground, and there was promise of colder nights soon to come. The moon, which had so kindly befriended us during the greater part of our journey to this point, was still shining brightly, shedding its silvery rays over the wilderness of mountains that loomed up around us. The view over Lake Valley was superb. I have seen nothing to surpass it in Switzerland or Norway. Perhaps the finest feature of the whole journey is the descent of the new grade. For a distance of five or six miles the road winds around the sides of the mountains, crossing ravines and doubling up occasionally in turns so rapid that the stage seems to run one way and the horses another. Some of these whirling turns reminded me of the flight of an Australian boomerang. As we strike the straight road again the driver gives rein to our spirited animals; crack goes the whip, and down we plunge over narrow bridges, along the edges of terrific precipices a thousand feet deep, through dark forests of pine and along frowning banks of granite, hewn from the solid bed of the mountain. Despite the ridiculous stories we had heard of accidents and alarms, every passenger with a nervous system clings tenaciously to the stage fixtures, as if determined to follow the stage wherever it might go, and there were moments when we even held our breath to keep up a balance. I flatter my-self I saved the lives of the whole party several times by hoisting at the lee rail, and holding my breath hard, while I leaned over on the weather side. It is not comfortable to look down when you are flying along at the rate of ten miles an hour and see no bottom short of a thousand or fifteen hundred feet. Yet there is a charm in this dashing, reckless journey by moonlight. The danger is just sufficient to give it a relish. The excitement keeps the blood warm; the fresh mountain air invigorates and inspires every faculty; the spirit rises with

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the rapidity of the motion, and before you get half-way to the valley you find yourself in a condition to sing, shout, or dance. The driver, by whose side I had the honor to sit, had evidently cultivated his voice for singing; but unfortunately he knew but one song—and of that he remembered but one line

"When this cruel war is over!"

which he sang straight ahead for three hours, commencing at the top of the grade and ending only when relieved by a new driver. Indeed, I am not sure that he ended then, for the last I heard of him he was leaning against a post at the station-house, humming over to himself

"When this cruel war is over!"

and it is not impossible he may be at it yet. The only variety I noticed during the journey was in the form of an interlude as he spoke to the horses, "Git aeoup, Bummers! Git alang, Rebs!

"When this—and so forth; now git!"

The song is not bad when you get the whole of it, with a strong chorus; but a single line of it, repeated for a distance of twenty-five miles without a chorus, becomes monotonous.

Whether the lack of variety in the poetry had a soporific tendency, or loss of rest produced a heaviness in the head, I don't know; but after the novelty of our flight down the grade had worn away somewhat, I now and then detected myself in the act of plunging overboard on the backs of the horses, or bobbing into some frightful abyss. Once I actually thought I was gone, and received such a shock when I discovered that I had only been asleep, and was still on hand, as to keep me wide awake during the rest of the way to Lake Tahoe.

CHAPTER XXXII.

LAKE TAHOE.

THIS beautiful lake was originally named Bigler, after a distinguished politician, who held the position of Governor of California—John Bigler. It was so named by a gentleman who had a high admiration for the name of Bigler. The beauty of the scenery, the crystal clearness of the water, the inspiring purity of the atmosphere filled the soul of Bigler's friend with poetry, and he called this lovely spot Bigler. It was a just tribute to the popularity of the Governor among his friends; but no governor on earth can enjoy every man's friendship. Bigler had enemies like other governors—some because they wanted office and couldn't get it; others because they wanted a contract and couldn't get it; and many because they wanted to be governor themselves. When this distinguished gentleman ceased to be Governor of California he was made a Minister to South America. It was then discovered by both friends and enemies that the name was inappropriate and lacked euphony; friends had nothing more to hope; enemies nothing more to fear. Who the deuce is John Bigler, said they, that the finest lake in California should be called after him? Let us blot his ugly name off the map and call this beautiful sheet of water Lake Latham or Lake Downey. .But here commenced a squabble between the friends of these eminent gentlemen relative to their respective claims. Latham, it was true, had served with honor in the Custom-House—had held the Gubernatorial chair for a few weeks, and subsequently had become United States Senator. But then Downey had vetoed

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the Bulkhead bill. Pending this difficulty, a hint from some obscure source came very near resulting in the selection of a name that would doubtless have afforded general satisfaction, since it could be claimed by a great many people throughout the State—the name of Brown. It was brief, pointed, and popular—Lake Brown! But

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what Brown? Jack Brown, Jim Brown, Bill Brown or Ross Browne? There were thirty-six Browns in the Penitentiary, besides several more who ought to be there; and at least forty-four Browns were candidates for the Legislature or inmates of the Lunatic Asylum; so that it was difficult to see what Brown would be specially benefited by the compliment. The name itself scarcely presented sufficient claims over all other names to be selected merely on account of its euphony. So Brown was dropped; and between Latham and Downey it was impossible to come to an equitable decision. The name of Bigler remained unmolested for several years longer. In due time, when Latham and Downey were both thrown overboard, the discussion of the question was renewed —every prominent man in the State claiming that the lake should be named after himself. Finally, as popular sentiment could not fix upon the name of any white man, it gradually settled down in favor of the supposed Indian name—Tahoe—which was the first word spoken to the discoverer by a solitary digger, whom he encountered upon its shores. "Tahoe!" cried the digger; and it was at once assumed that "Tahoe" meant "Big Water;" but I am assured by an old settler that "Tahoe" means "Strong Water "—in other words, "Whisky "—so that this magnificent lake, formerly called Bigler, is now literally "Lake Whisky!"

Within the past two years the people of California and Washoe have begun to discover the beauties of this charming region, and its rare advantages as a place of summer resort. Situated in the bosom of the Sierra Nevada mountains, 6000 feet above the level of the sea, with an atmosphere of wonderful purity; abounding in game; convenient of access, and possessing all the attractions of retirement from the busy world, amid scenery unrivalled for its romantic beauties, there can be no doubt it will soon become the grand central point of pleasure and recreation for the people of the Pacific coast. The water of the lake is singularly clear and blue, and during the

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warmest months is so cool as to render bathing rather a lively and stimulating exercise. It abounds in the finest trout, which supply the markets of Carson and Virginia City, and occasionally furnish a rich treat to the epicures of San Francisco. Fishermen are busily occupied with their nets at intervals along its shores, greatly to the detriment of gentlemen who follow in the footsteps of Izaak Walton. An excellent hotel, called the Lake House, has been established at a beautiful and picturesque point on the right shore (going toward Virginia), where good accommodations and "all the luxuries of the season" can now be had. Two enterprising Americans, Messrs. Dean and Martin, had recently purchased the premises, with a view of getting up a splendid watering-place in the Atlantic style. Already they had bath-houses, pleasure-boats, riding-horses, billiard-tables, bowling-alleys, and all the conveniences for health and recreation. At the time of my visit the house was in process of enlargement. Martin was one of my fellow-pedestrians on my first trip across the mountains to Washoe, and I can safely say it would give me great pleasure to hear of his success in this enterprise. He is a clever, genial fellow, a first-rate travelling companion, and an upright, honest man.

To dyspeptics, consumptives, and broken-down stock-brokers I have a word of advice to offer: If you want your digestive apparatus put in complete order, so that brickbats will stick to your ribs without inconvenience, spend a month with my friend Martin; if your bronchial tubes distress you, swallow a few thousand gallons of Lake Tahoe air, and you can blow bellows blasts from your lungs forever after; if your nervous system is deranged by bad speculations in stocks, bowl nine-pins and row one of Martin's boats for six weeks, and I venture to affirm stocks will rise a thousand per cent. It is all a matter of health in the long-run; with good digestion and a sound nervous system there is no trouble in life; and for these ends there is no place like Tahoe.

From the first hour after leaving Placerville we pass-

LAKE TAHOE. 333

ed along the road-side numerous teams and trains of wagons, most of which were grouped together under the trees, or in front of the station-houses, in the old-fashioned camp style. I commenced a rough calculation of the number of wagons, but soon gave it up as a hopeless task. It seemed to me that there were enough of them,

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big and little, to reach all the way over the mountain. At the least calculation we must have passed two or three hundred.. Every wagon was heavily freighted—some with merchandise, others with iron castings for the mills, and quite a goodly number with families, fruit, whisky, and furniture. There were horse-teams, and mule-teams, and ox-teams. I never before saw so many teams on one road. No wonder the dust was pretty deep!

"Are you going back to the States?" said I, to a Pike County man, with a wagon-load of wife and children, beds, chairs, and cooking utensils. "No, Sir," said he, turning the quid in his leathery jaw, " you bet I ain't! I'm bound for Reese! After I make my pile thar, a keeping of a tavern, I'll steer for Californy agin—it's good enough a country for me." "Why did you leave it?" I asked. " Wa'al," said the poor fellow, wiping the dust from his face with the back of his hand, " that's more'n I know. 'Twarn't my fault. The old 'oman was high for feet. She said we were fools for a tinkerin' on our little farm down thar, when every body was makin' fortunes in Reese. She's tolerable peert—the old 'man is. Oh, she's on it, you bet!" "Well, I wish you luck!" "Thank yer," drawled Pike; " what mout yer name be, stranger?" "My name?—ahem—is—John." The man looked hard at me; turned the quid once more in his leathery jaw; squirted out a copious stream of juice, and, without changing in the slightest degree the gravity of his countenance, said, "Mine's Job;" and then went to work unhitching his horses. This was the last I saw of Job. The camp scenes along the way-side were lively and picturesque. I enjoyed them with a peculiar zest after three years of travel through the deserts of civilization in Europe. - Here was life reduced to its primary elements; here were accommodations cheap, roomy, and gorgeously furnished; here was comfort fit for poet, artist, or any other man of a naturally healthy and barbarous taste; here were food and fire without stint, and fresh air to an unlimited extent; and holes enough

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through the tops of the trees to let the smoke out; and neither commissioners nor waiters to stand behind and admire your style of eating. Who is there so depraved as not to yearn for the heavenly joys of a camp life in the wilderness? Just take a side-peep at that merry group of teamsters! Uncouth and unsentimental they may be; tired and hungry after their hard day's work they doubtless are; but did you ever see a happier-looking set of vagabonds? Their faces, despite the dust and grime that besmear them, absolutely shine in the cheery light of the big log fire; they sniff the steaming stew that simmers in the pot with sympathetic unction; they sit and loll upon their mother earth in exquisite unconsciousness of dirt; they spin their yarns of the day's adventures with many a merry burst of laughter; and now, as they fall to work and devour the savory mess before them, what need have they for dinner-pills? Hunger is their sauce—fresh air and exercise their medicine. Oh, the jolly rascals! How I envy them their camp life!

On second thoughts I don't know that they are to be envied in every particular. As to the daily part of their occupation—driving ox and mule teams over the Sierras; swallowing dust and alkali on the plains; pushing, pulling, sweating, and swearing at their stubborn animals, and navigating their heavy wagons over bad roads from one month's end to another—I can't conscientiously envy them. Sooner than follow mule or ox driving as a profession, I think I'd profess politics for a living—which I consider the last resort of a worthless man.

Yet I must confess the trip to Washoe has, to me at least, lost much of its original charm. No longer is the way variegated by long strings of pedestrians, carrying their picks, shovels, and blankets upon their backs; no longer are the stopping-places crowded every night with two or three hundred millionaires rejoicing in empty pockets and brimming heads; no longer are the wild mountain passes enlivened by grotesque gangs of saddle-

336 WASHOE REVISITED.

trains and passengers struggling through the mud and snow; it is all now a regular and well-established line of travel—too civilized to be interesting in any great degree, and too convenient to admit of those charming discomforts which formerly afforded us so much amusement. The business man who now leaves San Francisco at 4 P.M. is deposited at Virginia City by 10 o'clock the next night—just thirty-six hours' travelling time. Fancy how the emigrants who crossed these mountains prior to 1860 would have stared at the bare suggestion of such a feat as this! If we are behind the times in railroads, it is certain there is no such country in the world for feats of horse-flesh as California. The length of our stage-routes, the rapidity with which we travel on them, and the facilities afforded by our expresses, would astonish the humdrum people of the Atlantic States, if they had the faintest idea of the difficulties to be overcome in carrying such enterprises into effect in a country like ours.

A new road now winds along the shores of Lake Tahoe. This part of the trip will compare favorably with a journey along the shores of Como. At the Point of Rocks the scene is equal to any thing of the kind to be found in Europe. The road is cut through the brow of the cliff, and for a distance of several hundred feet is supported by massive timbers. To the left the clear blue waters of the lake glimmer through forests of towering pine; to the right is a colossal tower of rocks, presenting a front like some grand old fortress built by an antediluvian race of giants. A rough and very hasty sketch was all I could get of this remarkable point.

Leaving the lake at the Glenbrook Station, we begin to ascend the last of the Sierra Nevada "divides," and, after a heavy pull and long descent, enjoy a fine view of the pretty little town of Carson. An hour more, and we are safely landed at the Express office of Wells, Fargo, and Co., from which point we can diverge to any number of bad hotels. By selecting the worst you will possibly not be disappointed.

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Carson City has enjoyed a very wholesome kind of prosperity since my first visit, if I might be allowed to judge by a casual glance at the new buildings around the Plaza and the many pleasant residences in the suburbs. The plethoric condition of the stock market in San Francisco, and the fact that capital had been pouring through the various passes of the Sierras into Washoe,

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had led me to expect that wonderful improvements must be the result. Nor was I disappointed. The number of drinking-saloons in Carson City, and in fact all along the route, manifested in a remarkable degree the rapid progress of civilization. The splendid stone Penitentiary, situated a couple of miles from Carson, presented another striking evidence of moral advancement.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

VIRGINIA CITY.

I WAS prepared to find great changes on the route from Carson to Virginia City. At Empire City—which was nothing but a sage-desert inhabited by Dutch Nick on the occasion of my early explorations—I was quite bewildered with the busy scenes of life and industry. Quartz-mills and saw-mills had completely usurped the valley along the head of the Carson River; and now the hammering of stamps, the hissing of steam, the whirling clouds of smoke from tall chimneys, and the confused clamor of voices from a busy multitude, reminded one of a manufacturing city. Here, indeed, was progress of a substantial kind.

Further beyond, at Silver City, there were similar evidences of prosperity. From the descent into the cañon through the Devil's Gate, and up the grade to Gold Hill, it is almost a continuous line of quartz-mills, tunnels, dumps, sluices, water-wheels, frame shanties, and grog-shops.

Gold Hill itself has swelled into the proportions of a city. It is now practically a continuation of Virginia. Here the evidences of busy enterprise are peculiarly striking. The whole hill is riddled and honey-combed with shafts and tunnels. Engine-houses for hoisting are perched on points apparently inaccessible; quartz-mills of various capacities line the sides of the cañon; the main street is well flanked by brick stores, hotels, express-offices, saloons, restaurants, groggeries, and all those attractive places of resort which go to make up a flourishing milling town. Even a newspaper is printed

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here, which I know to be a spirited and popular institution, having been viciously assailed by the same. A runaway team of horses, charging full tilt down the street, greeted our arrival in a lively and characteristic manner, and came very near capsizing our stage. One man was run over some distance below, and partially crushed; but as somebody was killed nearly every day, such a meagre result afforded no general satisfaction.

Descending the slope of the ridge that divides Gold Rill from Virginia City a strange scene attracts the eye. He who gazes upon it for the first time is apt to doubt if it be real. Perhaps there is not another spot upon the face of the globe that presents a scene so weird and desolate in its natural aspect, yet so replete with busy life, so animate with human interest. It is as if a wondrous battle raged, in which the combatants were man and earth. Myriads of swarthy, bearded, dust-covered men are piercing into the grim old mountains, ripping them open, thrusting murderous holes through their naked bodies; piling up engines to cut out their vital arteries; stamping and crushing up with infernal machines their disembowelled fragments, and holding fiendish revels amid the chaos of destruction; while the mighty earth, blasted, barren, and scarred by the tempests of ages, fiercely affronts the foe—smiting him with disease and death; scoffing at his puny assaults with a grim scorn; ever grand in his desolation, ever dominant in the infinity of his endurance. "Come!" he seems to mutter, "dig, delve, pierce, and bore, with your picks, your shovels, and your infernal machines; wring out of my veins a few globules of the precious blood; hoard it, spend it, gamble for it, bring perdition to your souls with it—do what you will, puny insects! Sooner or later the death-blow smites you, and Earth swallows you! From earth you came—to earth you go again!"

The city lies on a rugged slope, and is singularly diversified in its uprisings and downfallings. It is difficult to determine, by any system of observation or measurement,

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upon what principle it was laid out. My impression is that it never was laid out at all, but followed the dips, spurs, and angles of the immortal Comstock. Some of the streets run straight enough; others seem to dodge about at acute angles in search of an open space, as miners explore the subterranean regions in search of a lead. The cross streets must have been forgotten in the original plan—if ever there was a plan about this eccentric city. Sometimes they happen accidentally at the most unexpected points; and sometimes they don't happen at all where you are sure to require them. A man in a hurry to get from the. upper slope of the town to any opposite point below must try it underground or over the roofs of the houses, or take the customary circuit of half a mile. Every body seems to have built wherever he could secure a lot. The two main streets, it must be admitted, are so far regular as to follow pretty nearly the direction of the Comstock lode. On the lower slope, or plateau, the town, as viewed from any neighboring eminence, presents much the appearance of a vast number of shingle-roofs shaken down at random, like a jumbled pack of cards. All the streets are narrow, except where there are but few houses, and there they are wide enough at present. The business part of the town has been built up with astonishing rapidity. In the spring of 1860 there was nothing of it save a few frame shanties and canvas tents, and one or two rough stone cabins. It now presents some of the distinguishing features of a metropolitan city. Large and substantial brick houses, three or four stories high, with ornamental fronts, have filled up most of the gaps, and many more are still in progress of erection. The oddity of the plan, and variety of its architecture—combining most of the styles known to the ancients, and some but little known to the moderns—give this famous city a grotesque, if not picturesque, appearance, which is rather increased upon a close inspection.

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Immense freight-wagons, with ponderous wheels and axles, heavily laboring under prodigious loads of ore for the mills, or groaning with piles of merchandise in boxes, bales, bags, and crates, block the narrow streets. Powerful teams of horses, mules, or oxen, numbering from eight to sixteen animals to each wagon, make frantic efforts to drag these land schooners over the ruts, and up the sudden rises, or through the sinks of this rut-smitten, ever-rising, ever-sinking city. A pitiable sight it is to see them! Smoking hot, reeking with sweat, dripping with liquified dust, they pull, jerk, groan, fall back. and dash forward, tumble down, kick, plunge, and bite; then buckle to it again, under the gaffing lash; and so live and so struggle these poor beasts, for their pittance of barley and hay, till they drop down dead. How they would welcome death if they had souls! Yet men have souls, and work hard too for their miserable pittance of food. How few of the countless millions of the earth yearn for death or welcome its coming? Even the teamsters that drive these struggling labor-worn brutes seem so fond of life that they scorn eternity. Brawny, bearded fellows they are; their faces so ingrained with the dust and grit of earth, and tanned to such an uncertain hue by the scorching suns and dry winds of the road, that for the matter of identity they might as well be Hindoos or Belooches. With what malignant zeal they crack their leather-thonged whips, and with what ferocious vigor they rend the air with their imprecations! O Plutus! such swearing—a sliding scale of oaths to which swearing in all other parts of the world is as the murmuring of a gentle brook to the volume and rush and thunder of a cataract. The fertility of resource displayed by these reckless men; their ready command of metaphor; their marvellous genius for strange, startling, and graphic combination of slang and profanity; their grotesque originality of inflection and climax; their infatuated credulity in the understanding of dumb animals; would in the pursuit of any nobler art elevate them to a niche in

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the temple of fame. Surely if murder be deemed one of the Fine Arts in Virginia City, swearing ought not to be held in such common repute.

Entering the main street you pass on the upper side huge piles of earth and ore, hoisted out of the shafts or run out of the tunnels, and cast over the "dumps." The hill-sides, for a distance of more than a mile, are perfectly honey-combed. Steam-engines are puffing off their steam; smoke-stacks are blackening the air with their thick volumes of smoke; quartz-batteries are battering; hammers are hammering; subterranean blasts are bursting up the earth; picks and crow-bars are picking and crashing into the precious rocks; shanties are springing up, and carpenters are sawing and ripping and nailing; store-keepers are rolling their merchandise in and out along the way-side; fruit venders are peddling their fruits; wagoners are tumbling out and piling in their freights of dry goods and ore; saloons are glittering with their gaudy bars and fancy glasses, and many-colored liquors, and thirsty men are swilling the burning poison; auctioneers, surrounded by eager and gaping crowds of speculators, are shouting off the stocks of delinquent stockholders; organ-grinders are grinding their organs and torturing consumptive monkeys; hurdy-gurdy girls are singing bacchanalian songs in bacchanalian dens; Jew clothiers are selling off prodigious assortments of worthless garments at ruinous prices; bill-stickers are sticking up bills of auctions, theatres, and new saloons; newsboys are crying the city papers with the latest telegraphic news; stages are dashing off with passengers for "Reese;" and stages are dashing in with passengers from "Frisco;" and the inevitable Wells, Fargo, and Co. are distributing letters, packages, and papers to the hungry multitude, amid tempting piles of silver bricks and wonderful complications of scales, letter-boxes, clerks, account-books, and twenty-dollar pieces. All is life, excitement, avarice, lust, deviltry, and enterprise. A strange city truly, abounding in strange exhibitions

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and startling combinations of the human passions. Where upon earth is there such another place?

One of the most characteristic features of Virginia is the inordinate passion of the inhabitants for advertising. Not only are the columns of the newspapers filled with every possible species of advertisement, but the streets and hill-sides are pasted all over with flaming bills. Says the proprietor of a small shanty, in letters that send a thrill of astonishment through your brain:

"LOOK HERE!

For fifty cents YOU CAN GET A GOOD SQUARE MEAL at the HOWLING WILDERNESS SALOON!"

A square meal is not, as may be supposed, a meal placed upon the table in the form of a solid cubic block, but a substantial repast of pork and beans, onions, cabbage; and other articles of sustenance that will serve to fill up the corners of a miner's stomach.

The Jew clothing-stores present the most marvellous fertility of invention in this style of advertising. Bills are posted all over the door-ways, in the windows, on the pavements, and on the various articles of clothing hung up for sale. He who runs may read:

"Now OR NEVER! Cheapest coats in the world!! PANTS GIVEN AWAY!!! WALK IN, GENTS."

And so on without limit. New clothes and clothes doubtful are offered for sale at these prolific establishments, which are always selling off at cost or suicidal prices, yet never seem to be reduced in stock. I verily believe I saw hanging at the door of one of these shops the identical pair of stockings stolen from me several years ago at Strawberry.

Drinking establishments being rather numerous, the competition in this line of business gives rise to a very persuasive and attractive style of advertising. The bills are usually printed in florid and elaborately gilt letters, and frequently abound in pictures of an imaginative character. "Cosy Home," "Miner's Retreat," "Social-Hall," "Empire," "Indication," "Fancy-Free," "Snug,"

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"Shades," etc., are a few of the seductive names given to these places of popular resort; and the announcements are generally followed by a list of "choice liquors" and the gorgeous attractions of the billiard department, together with a hint that Dick, Jack, Dan, or Jerry " is always on hand, and while grateful for past favors, will spare no pains to merit a continuance of the same. By catering to the public taste he hopes to make his house in the future, as it has been in the past, a real "Home for the Boys!" Nice homes these, and a nice family of boys that will come out of them! Where will they live when they grow to be men? A good idea it was to build a stone penitentiary.

"Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! "AUCTION SALES EVERY DAY!"

This is another form of advertisement for a very prolific branch of trade. Day and night auctions are all the rage in Virginia as in San Francisco. Every thing that can't go any other way, and many things that can, go by auction. Stocks, horses, mules, boots, groceries, tinware, drugs and medicines, and rubbish of all kinds are put in flaming bills and auctioned off to the highest bidder for cash. "An'af! an'af! an'af! shall I have it?" is a part of the language popularly spoken on the principal streets.

A cigar store not much bigger than a dry goods, box must have its mammoth posters out over the town and hill-sides, displaying to the public eye the prodigious assortments of Regalias, Principes, Cheroots, etc., and choice brands of "Yellow-leaf," "Honey-dew," "Solace," and "Eureka," to be had within the limits of their cigar and tobacco emporium. If Archimedes were to rush from the solace of a bath and run naked through the streets of Virginia, shouting, "Eureka! Eureka!" it would merely be regarded as a dodge to dispose of an invoice of Fine-Cut.

Quack pills, sirups, tonics, and rectifiers stare you in the face from every mud-bank, rock, post, and corner, in red, black, blue, and white letters; in hieroglyphics, in

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cadaverous pictures of sick men, and astounding pictures of well men.

Every branch of trade, every conceivable species of amusement, is forced upon the public eye in this way. Bill-posting is one of the fine arts. Its professors are among the most notable characters in Virginia. They have a specific interest in certain corners, boards, boxes, and banks of earth and rock, which, with the brush and pot of paste, yield them a handsome revenue. To one who witnesses this bill-mania for the first time the effect is rather peculiar. He naturally imagines that the whole place is turned inside out. Every man's business fills his eye from every point of view, and he can not conceive the existence of a residence unless it be that where so much of the inside is out some portion of the outside may be in. With the exception of the silver mines this is, to a casual observer, an inverted city, and may well claim to be a city of anomalies. I had occasion, during my stay, to avail myself of the services of a professional bill-sticker. For the sum of six dollars he agreed to make me notorious. The bills were printed in the approved form: "A Trip to Iceland," etc. Special stress was given to the word "ICELAND," and my name was printed in extravagantly conspicuous letters. In the course of a day or two I was shocked at the publicity the Professor of Bill-Posting had given me. From every rock, corner, dry goods box, and awning post; from every screen in every drinking-saloon, I was confronted and brow-beaten by my own name. I felt disposed to shrink into my boots. Had any body walked up to me and said, "Sir, you are a humbug!" it would have been an absolute relief. I would have grasped him by the hand, and answered, "I know it, my dear fellow, and honor you for your frankness!" But there was one consolation: I was suffering in company. A lady, popularly known as "The Menken," had created an immense sensation in San Francisco, and was about to favor the citizens of Virginia with a classical equestrian exhibition

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entitled "Mazeppa." She was represented as tied in an almost nude state to the back of a wild horse, which was running away with her at a fearful rate of speed. My friend the Professor was an artist in the line of bill-sticking, and carefully studied effects. He evidently enjoyed Mazeppa. It was a flaming and a gorgeous bill. Its colors were of the most florid character; and he posted accordingly. First came Mazeppa on the mustang horse; then came the Trip to Iceland and myself. If I remember correctly, we (that is to say "The Menken" and I) ware followed by "Ayer's Tonic Pills," "Brown's Bronchial Troches," and "A good Square Meal at the Howling Wilderness Saloon." Well, I suppose it was all right, though it took me rather aback at the first view. If the lady had no reason to complain it was not for me, an old traveller, to find fault with the bill-sticker for placing me prominently before the public. Perhaps the juxtaposition was unfortunate in a pecuniary point of view; perhaps the citizens of Virginia feel no great interest in icy regions. Be that as it may, never again so long as I live will I undertake to run "Iceland" in the vicinity of a beautiful woman tied to the back of a wild horse.

But I anticipate my story. Scarcely had I descended from the stage when I was greeted by several old friends, who expressed themselves highly gratified at my arrival. Their remarks, indeed, were so complimentary that I hesitate to repeat them. Truth, however, must be regarded, even at the expense of modesty. "Your sketch of Washoe," said they, "was a capital burlesque. It was worthy of Phoenix or Artemus Ward! A great many people thought it was true! Of course we understood it, but you know one-half of mankind doesn't know a joke from a demonstration in Euclid!" Here was glory! Here was a reward for all my past sufferings! An unfortunate gentleman walks all the way over from Placerville to Washoe, with his blankets on his back; endures the most extraordinary privations; catches the

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rheumatism; tic-douloureux, and dysentery; invests in the Dead Broke; fails to make an agency pay; drags his weary limbs back again, and writes out what he conceives to be a truthful account of his experiences, and is then complimented upon having made a capital hit, perpetrated a most admirable burlesque, worthy the distinguished humorists of the age! It was a sorry joke for me. I was terribly in earnest about it, at all events.

"You will admit," said these excellent friends, " that the richness of this country surpasses any thing ever known in the world before; that you were altogether mistaken about the silver lodes?"

"No, gentlemen," was my answer, "I can't admit any such thing. I said the Comstock was wonderfully rich, so far as any body could judge from the specimens of ore taken out; but I thought there was considerable doubt as to where the running feet might run That doubt is not yet removed from my mind. I advised people not to invest in the ten thousand outside lodes that were then in existence. Where are your Flowery Diggings now? What is your Desert worth per running foot? How much will you give me for my Scandalous Wretch, or Bobtail Horse, or Root Hog or Die —all first-class lodes in the neighborhood of the Devil's Gate? Show me a single claim that pays assessments, or pays any thing at all, or is likely ever to pay fifty cents per acre, outside of the main lead in Gold Hill and Virginia City; show me how many of your best mines pay dividends, and I will take back all I said."

At this there was a general look of blankness, as if the facts had not occurred to them before in that point of view.

"But you'll admit that a man can't see much of a mineral district in a few days. You ought to spend a week or two in each mine; then you would be prepared to say something about it."

Strange, isn't it, that people will never get over this

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idea! Wherever I travel I am told that nothing can be seen short of a few weeks or a few months or a few years! If I undertake to look at a potato-patch or a cabbage-garden, it is urgently represented that I can "form no conception how potatoes and cabbages grow in this section" without a month's careful examination of the roots or fibres. I am occasionally so bothered in this way as to feel tempted to offer rather a rude reply, viz.: that one who makes it his business to observe things around him can, with an ordinary share of penetration and some common sense, see as much in a day as many people who live on the spot see in a life-time. It might be effrontery to tell these Virginians, upon so brief an inspection, that I knew more of their city and its re-sources than they did; but I would even venture some-thing on that point. "You did us great injury," said they, "by so casual a glance at our mines." For example, you cast contempt upon the whole Comstock lode by representing its dips, spurs, and angles in a sort of burlesque map resembling a bunch of straw."

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Alas, poor human nature! These very parties, who complained of my map because it resembled a bunch of straw—illustrating the assertion that every body's dips, spurs, and angles were running into every body else's —were at that very moment, and doubtless are yet, at daggers' points of litigation with other parties who had run into their dips, spurs, and angles. I don't know of a mine on the Comstock which does not infringe upon the alleged rights of some other mine. The results of an actual survey are precisely the same as those produced by a bundle of straw well inked and pressed upon a sheet of paper. To call a map so accurately truthful as mine a burlesque calculated to throw contempt upon the subject, manifests a degree of visual obliquity, if not moral assurance, absolutely refreshing.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

A DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE.

THE citizens of Virginia, like the citizens of Timbuctoo in Africa and Reykjavik in Iceland, are enthusiastic admirers of their own place of residence. Not satisfied with the praise usually bestowed upon the city by every stranger who enters it and who desires to maintain friendly relations with the inhabitants, they are exacting to a degree bordering on the despotic. A visitor is required to go into ecstasies over the climate, should there chance to occur, during his sojourn, a passably fine day. He is called upon at every turn to do homage to the wonderful progress of improvement, which they consider far ahead of any thing ever achieved by human beings constructed in the usual form. He is expected to pay the tribute of admiration to the magnificence of the buildings and the sumptuous accommodations of the hotels. If he does not boldly, firmly, and without reservation, express the opinion that the mines are richer by a thousand to one than those of Mexico or South America, he is at once set down as a man whose opinion is worth nothing. Should a stray bullet whiz by his head and kill some equally innocent party within a distance of three paces, he is gravely assured and required to believe that there is as much respect paid to life and limb in Virginia City as there is in any city in the Union. At any hour of the night, when the noise around his lodgings would shame Bedlam, his attention is exultingly directed to the elysian repose of this delectable metropolis, Passing those dens of infamy that abound on every street, he is invited, with an assurance

A DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE. 361

almost incredible, to render homage to the exalted condition of public morals. In full view of the most barren, blasted, and horribly desolate country that perhaps the light of heaven ever shone upon, he is appealed to, as a lover of nature, to admire the fertility of the soil, the luxuriance of the vegetation, and the exquisite beauty of the scenery. Surrounded by an enthusiastic dozen of citizens, most of whom-are afflicted with sore throat, mountain fever, erysipelas, bleeding of the nose, shortness of breath, heart disease, diarrhea, and loss of appetite, he is urged to observe the remarkable salubrity of the climate, and to disabuse his mind of those prejudices against it arising from the misrepresentations of interested parties.

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us—"

But what's the use? It would only make us miserable. We are better off as it is. Men who can see heaven in Virginia City are to be envied. Their condition is such that a change to a better world would not seem materially necessary to their exaltation; and I am sure the worst that could happen them would be borne with as much fortitude as lost sinners are permitted to exercise.

Making due allowance for the atmosphere of exaggeration through which a visitor sees every thing in this wonderful mining metropolis, its progress has been sufficiently remarkable to palliate in some measure the extraordinary flights of fancy in which its inhabitants are prone to indulge. I was not prepared to see so great a change within the brief period of three years; for when people assure me "the world never saw any thing like it," "California is left in the shade," " San Francisco is eclipsed," "Montgomery Street is nowhere now," my incredulity is excited, and it takes some little time to judge of the true state of the case without prejudice. Speaking then strictly within bounds, the growth of this city is remarkable. When it is considered that the surrounding country affords but few facilities for the construction

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of houses; that lumber has to be hauled a considerable distance at great expense; that lime, bricks, iron-work, sashes, doors, etc., cost three or four times what similar articles do in San Francisco; that much indispensable material can only be had by transporting it over the mountains a distance of more than a hundred and fifty miles; and that the average of mechanical labor, living, and other expenses is correspondingly higher than in California, it is really wonderful how much has been done in so short a space of time.

Yet, allowing all this, what would be the impressions of a Fejee Islander sent upon a mission of inquiry to this strange place? His earliest glimpse of the main street would reveal the curious fact that it is paved with a conglomerate of dust, mud, splintered planks, old boots, clippings of tinware, and playing-cards. It is especially prolific in the matter of cards. Mules are said to fatten on them during seasons of scarcity when the straw gives out. The next marvellous fact that would strike the observation of this wild native is that so many people live in so many saloons, and do nothing from morning till night, and from night till morning again, but drink fiery liquids and indulge in profane language. How can all these able-bodied men afford to be idle? Who pays their expenses? And why do they carry pistols, knives, and-other deadly weapons, when no harm could possibly befall them if they went unarmed and devoted themselves to some useful occupation? Has the God of the white men done them such an injury in furnishing all this silver for their use that they should treat his name with contempt and disrespect? Why do they send missionaries to the Fejee Islands and leave their own country in such a dreadful state of neglect? The Fejeeans devour their enemies occasionally as a war measure; the white man swallows his enemy all the time without regard to measure. Truly the white man is a very uncertain native! Fejeeans can't rely upon him.

When I was about to start on my trip to Washoe,

A DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE. 363

friends from Virginia assured me I would find hotels there almost if not quite equal to the best in San Francisco. There was but little difference, they said, except in the matter of extent. The Virginia hotels were quite as good, though not quite so large. Of course I believed all they told me. Now I really don't consider myself fastidious on the subject of hotels. Having travelled in many different countries, I have enjoyed an extensive experience in the way of accommodations, from my mother-earth to the foretop of a whale-ship, from an Indian wigwam to a Parisian hotel, from an African palm-tree to an Arctic snow-bank. I have slept in the same bed with two donkeys, a camel, half a dozen Arabs, several goats, and a horse. I have slept on beds alive with snakes, lizards, scorpions, centipeds, bugs, and fleas—beds

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in which men stricken with the plague had died horrible deaths—beds that might reasonably be suspected of small-pox, measles, and Asiatic cholera. I have slept in beds of rivers and beds of sand, and on the bare bed rock. Standing, sitting, lying down, doubled up, and hanging over; twisted, punched, jammed, and elbowed by drunken men; snored at in the cars; sat upon and smothered by the nightmare; burnt by fires, rained upon, snowed upon, and bitten by frost—in all these positions, and subject to all these discomforts, I have slept with comparative satisfaction. There are pleasanter ways of sleeping, to be sure, but there are times when any way is a blessing. In respect to the matter of eating I am even less particular. Frogs, horse-leeches, snails, and grasshoppers are luxuries to what I have eaten. It has pleased Providence to favor me with appetites and tastes appropriate to a great variety of circumstances and many conditions of life. These facts serve to show that I am not fastidious on the subject of personal accommodations.

Perhaps my experience in Virginia was exceptional; perhaps misfortune was determined to try me to the utmost extremity. I endeavored to find accommodations at a hotel recommended as the best in the place, and was shown a room over the kitchen stove, in which the thermometer ranged at about 130 to 150 degrees of Fahrenheit. To be lodged and baked at the rate of $2 per night, cash in advance, was more than I could stand, so I asked for another room. There was but one more, and that was pre-empted by a lodger who might or might not come back and claim possession in the middle of the night. It had no window except one that opened into the passage, and the bed was so arranged that every other lodger in the house could take a passing observation of the sleeper and enjoy his style of sleeping. Nay, it was not beyond the resources of the photographic art to secure his negative and print his likeness for general distribution. It was bad enough to be smothered for want of light and air; but I had no idea of paying $2 a

A DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE. 365

night for the poor privilege of showing people how I looked with my eyes shut, and possibly my mouth open. A man may have an attack of nightmare, his countenance may be distorted by horrible dreams; he may laugh immoderately at a very bad pun made in his sleep—in all which conditions of body and mind he doubtless presents an interesting spectacle to the critical eyes of a stranger, but he doesn't like to wake up suddenly and be caught in the act.

The next hotel to which I was recommended was eligibly located on a street composed principally of grog shops and gambling-houses. I was favored with a front room about eight feet square. The walls were constructed of boards fancifully decorated with paper, and afforded this facility to a lodger—that he could hear all that was going on in the adjacent rooms. The partitions might deceive the eye, but the ear received the full benefit of the various oaths, ejaculations, conversations, and perambulations in which his neighbors indulged. As for the bed, I don't know how long it had been in use, or what race of people had hitherto slept in it, but the sheets and blankets seemed to be sadly discolored by age —or lack of soap and water. It would be safe to say washing was not considered a paying investment by the managers of this establishment. Having been twenty-four hours without sleep or rest, I made an attempt to procure a small supply, but miserably failed in consequence of an interesting conversation carried on in the passage between the chamber-maids, waiters, and other ladies and gentlemen, respecting the last free fight. From what I could gather, this was considered the best neighborhood in the city for free fights. Within the past two weeks three or four men had been shot, stabbed, or maimed close by the door. "Oh it's a lively place, you bet!" said one of the ladies (the chamber-maid, I think), "an oncommon lively place—reely hexcitin'. I look out of the winder every mornin' jist to see how many dead men are layin' around. I declare to gracious the bullets

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flies around here sometimes like hailstones!" "An' Shure," said a voice in that rich brogue which can never be mistaken, "it's no wondher the boys shud be killin' an' murtherin' themselves forninst the door, whin they're all just like me, dyin' in love wid yer beauteeful self!" A smart slap and a general laugh followed this suggestion. "Git away wid ye, Dinnis; yer always up to yer mischief! As I was sayin', no later than this mornin', I

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see two men a poppin' away at each other wid six-shooters-a big man an' a little man. The big man he staggered an' fell right under the winder, wid his head on the curb-stone, an' his legs a stickin' right up in the air. He was all over blood, and when the boys picked him up he was dead as a brickbat. 'Tother chap he run into a saloon. You better b'leeve this is a lively neighborhood. I tell you hailstones is nothink to the way the bullets flies around." "That's so," chimes in another female voice; "I see myself, with my own eyes, Jack's corpse an' two more carried away in the last month. If I'd a had a six-shooter then, you bet they'd a carried away the fellow that nipped Jack!"

Now taking into view the picturesque spectacle that a few dead men dabbled in blood must present to the eye on a fine morning, and the chances of a miscellaneous ball carrying away the top of one's cranium, or penetrating the thin board wall and ranging upward through his body as he lies in bed, I considered it best to seek a more secluded neighborhood, where the scenery was of a less stimulating character and the hail-storms not quite so heavy. By the kind aid of a friend I secured comparatively agreeable quarters in a private lodging house kept by a widow lady. The rooms were good and the beds clean, and the price not extravagant for this locality—$12 a week without board.

So much for the famous hotels of Virginia. If there are any better, neither myself, nor some fellow-travellers who told me their experiences, succeeded in finding them. The concurrent testimony was that they are dirty, ill-kept, badly attended by rough, ill mannered-waiters -- noisy to such a degree that a sober man can get but little rest, day or night, and extravagantly high in proportion to the small comfort they afford. One of the newspapers published a statement which the author probably intended for a joke, but which is doubtless founded upon act—namely, that a certain hotel advertised for 300 chickens to serve the same number of guests. Only one

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chicken could be had for love or money—a very ancient rooster, which was made into soup and afterward served up in the form of a fricasee for the 300 guests. The flavor was considered extremely delicate—what there was of it; and there was plenty of it such as it was.

Still if we are to credit what the Virginia newspapers say—and it would be dangerous to intimate that they ever deal in any thing save the truth—there are other cities on the eastern slope of the Sierras which afford equally attractive accommodations. On the occasion of the recent Senatorial contest at Carson City, the prevailing rates charged for lodgings, according to the Virginia Enterprise, were as follows: "For a bed in a house, barn, blacksmith-shop, or hay-yard (none to be had—all having been engaged shortly before election); horse-blanket in ,an old sugar hogshead per night, $10; crockery-crate, with straw, $7 50; without straw, $5 75; for cellar-door, $4; for roosting on a smooth pole, $3 50; pole, common, rough, $3; plaza fence, $2 50; walking up and down the Warm Spring road—if cloudy, $1 50; if clear, $1 25. (In case the clouds are very thick and low, $1 75 is generally asked.) Very good roosting in a pine-tree, back of Camp Nye, may still be had free, but we understand that a company is being formed to monopolize all the more accessible trees. We believe they propose to improve by putting two pins in the bottom of each tree, or keep a man to boost regular customers. They talk of charging six bits."

I could scarcely credit this, if it were not that a friend of mine, who visited Reese River last summer, related some experiences of a corroborative character. Unable to secure lodgings elsewhere, he undertook to find accommodations in a vacant sheep corral. The proprietor happening to come home about midnight, found him spread out under the lee of the fence. "Look-a-here, stranger!" said he, gruffly, " that's all well enough, but I gen'rally collect in advance. Just fork over four bits or mizzle!" My friend indignantly mizzled. Cursing the

A DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE. 369

progressive spirit of the age, he walked some distance out of town, and was about to finish the night under the lee of a big quartz boulder, when a fierce-looking speculator, with a six-shooter in his hand, suddenly appeared from a cavity in the rock, saying, " No yer don't! Take a fool's advice now, and git! When you go a prospectin' around ov nights agin, jest steer clear ov this boulder -ef you please!" In vain my friend attempted to explain. The rising wrath of the squatter was not to be appeased by soft words, and the click of the trigger, as he raised his pistol and drew a bead, warned the trespasser that it was time to be off. He found lodgings that night on the public highway to Virginia City and San Francisco.

CHAPTER XXXV.

DOWN IN THE MINES.

WHEN you visit a friend in the country he usually displays his interest in your pleasure by inviting you to take a walk in his garden. He shows you his fruit trees and cabbages; dilates upon the productive qualities of his soil; surprises you with the growth of his pumpkins; excites your astonishment by the magnitude of his squashes; and if you happen to be interested in stock, takes you by the arm, conducts you to the back-yard, and shows you his fancy boar or improved style of ram. Some hospitable gentlemen connected with the Ophir, having none of these attractions about their premises, invited me, on the occasion of a visit, to take a ramble through their subterranean garden. This is. a compliment paid to visitors from distant parts of the world, and is considered a satisfactory substitute for the civilities available in other places. It was a little trying to the muscles, they admitted, but would amply repay me for the trouble. As to risk, it was trifling. Visitors to other mines now and then got their skulls crushed, or tumbled down shafts and were mashed, or became nervous and fainted into the machinery; but nothing of the kind was common in the Ophir. As a preliminary measure I was kindly furnished with a suit of rough outer-garments, somewhat dilapidated by frequent contact with different colored ores, and the drippings of candles and whitewash, but good enough for general protection. Into this ancient suit I speedily dived, and was so disguised that when I looked in the glass my first impulse was to turn round and knock down the miserable satire

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that stood in my boots. I was next provided with a candle and directed to hold it between my fingers, so as to reflect the light from the palm of my hand. Thus accoutred, we climbed a bit of a hill, and entered a hole somewhere, which we began to descend single file by means of a ladder. At the end of the ladder was a small bit of ground to stand on; and then another hole in the ground and another ladder. All along the range of these various ladders was a shaft, in which a ponderous piece of machinery appeared to be engaged in hoisting out water from the bottom of the mine. The holes through which we descended were so narrow that it was sometimes difficult to tell which was the ladder and which was the machine; but I continued to keep a firm grip of the ladder and let the machine look out for itself. When we got into this last hole, we squeezed through a trap-door and went down still further by another ladder that led to another, and then another, and so on till we reached another. I have no idea how many ladders there were. All I know is, they stand very straight up, and keep fearfully close to the machinery that drags up the water. I saw a good deal of rock and earth by holding the candle close to the sides of the subterranean excavations through which we passed. Whether the rock contained the silver, or whether the silver was contained in the loose earth, or whether they both contained it together, is a matter not to be recklessly or inconsiderately divulged. The interests of this mine are so extensive and multifarious that no man who values his reputation will jeopard it by disclosing facts which must either elevate stock to the detriment of purchasers, or depress it to the detriment of sellers. I therefore keep my own counsel. This much I may state: that the scientific gentleman who accompanied me was continually holding his candle against the dripping rocks and banks of earth and ejaculating: "There! you see it; hornblendic, feldspathic —'graniferous! Casings distinctly marked — Dip forty-five degrees. Here again—very rich! Don't you

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see it? And here! and here again—eh?" I certainly saw something. The reader will kindly consider me speechless with amazement. What I did see in those subterranean tunnels; the gloomy passages through which I navigated in pursuit of the scientific gentleman, whose motions were frightfully rapid; bobbing my head

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against timbers and sharp points of overhanging rock; doubling up and twisting around corners; and piles of ore, more or less valuable, that I stumbled over in striving to catch up with my learned friend; the color of the veins that dazzled my vision under the inspiration of his disquisitions on the feldspathic and hornblendic; the prodigious quantity of something in that line that darkened the highways and by-ways, must remain at the present writing a profound secret.

A memorable tour that was. Never in this world can I forget the Ophir! Once when I was at the bottom, creeping through the bowels of the earth, some cars laden with ore came rumbling along. "Stand aside, gents!" cried somebody, and I tried to stand aside. But who in the world can stand aside when there is scarcely foot-room for a goat? Here was a passage about five feet wide, at least three of which was taken up by railway and ears, and the rest by heavy timbers. I hugged a dark, wet wall; it was not near so comfortable as other substances I have hugged in my day. The cars scraped by; my bones were not crushed, and that was just all. Pleasant place that for a promenade! To be rolled out, squashed, or cut in segments may be a very trifling contingency to scientific gentlemen and experts; but I prefer the contemplation of the heavenly bodies from the surface of the earth.

I really can not remember how many dismal passages we went through. We explored the sixth story, the fifth, and several others, which had the same general aspect of mud and mineral. In one shaft the workmen above were pitching down loose earth and rocks to be run out through a tunnel. This we climbed by means of a very long ladder. It was good exercise for body and mind. The ore came tumbling down more or less all the time, and I had faint hopes some large mass would not fall on my head before I reached the top and carry me to the bottom. The accidents that occur in this way are numerous. Recently two miners, ascending a shaft in one

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of the mines, were struck by a dog and crushed to atoms. They were 175 feet from the bottom, and were going up in a tub. The dog tripped in attempting to run across the mouth of the shaft, and struck them at a distance of over 100 feet from the surface, carrying all before him. In another place we enjoyed a view of the wreck caused by the caving in of the Mexican. Here, to be sure, was a crush of matter! Timbers shivered and wrenched to splinters; rocks and masses of earth tumbled into chaos! Even where we stood the massive beams that supported the tunnel were imbedded in each other by the tremendous weight of the mass above, which never ceases to bear down upon them. It appeared to me that it settled as I gazed upon it. Beams of timber eighteen inches square seemed to offer but a feeble resistance to such a crushing weight. That this whole tunnel must cave in sooner or later is my deliberate conviction. Miners, like sailors, grew to be indifferent to danger.

When the Mexican caved in there was a concussion of air in the Ophir that knocked down several of the workmen. One man, in the confusion of the moment, rushed frantically through the falling mass of earth and timber, and, strange to say, escaped with a few scratches and bruises. He must have passed through 100 feet of this chaotic mass. The spot was pointed out to me, and I must say had my informant not been a scientific gentleman, given to mathematical demonstrations, I must have doubted the story. Timbers, rocks, and earth are crushed together in one vast conglomerate of rubbish. It is scarcely conceivable that even a rat could creep through it; yet this man escaped and is now boring into more earth .for a living.

Having seen all the wonders of the Ophir, I was kindly permitted to select three modes of reaching the upper crust of the world: to climb up the ladders again, or be dragged up the "incline" by a steam-engine; or be hoisted up a shaft in a wooden bucket by means of a hand -windlass. The ladders I had already enjoyed; the

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incline I did not incline to, from a vague notion that the machinery might keep on turning after I got to the top and drag me into it, or snap the rope and send me whizzing to the bottom again; so I elected to be hoisted out by the hand-windlass. Dispensing with the bucket, I put my foot in a noose of the rope; was hoisted away;

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bobbed against the sides of the shaft; scraped through a trap-door, and deposited on the landing-place. It was an interesting tour, and I was thankful to my friends, but more thankful still to Providence, when I breathed once more the fresh air and enjoyed the pleasant sunshine of the outer world.

Every city has its chronic nightmare, whether in the shape of flood, fire, earthquake, or pestilence. Every - community is, or deems itself liable to some special calamity. The citizens of Virginia are troubled with a one-ledge theory. It is the nightmare of property-owners—the special calamity that threatens ruin to the speculators in Wild Cat. Naturally enough it is unpopular among the masses. No man who aspires, to public honors can by any possibility succeed on the one-ledge theory. He must believe in a multiplicity of ledges; he must be sound on the Comstock as a basis, and sound on the great family of ledges supposed to exist in its neighborhood. The owner of feet in the Comstock can afford to be a one-ledge man, provided he has been successful in quieting the rival claims of squatters who have dipped into his spurs; but he is interested in the prosperity city, and therefore will best consult his interests by being a many-ledged man. The editor of a newspaper may have doubts on the subject -- if editors ever have doubts on any subject—but he can have no doubt about the policy of retaining his subscribers and his advertising patronage. The more ledges the more companies, and the more companies the more notices of Assessments. Hence it is the interest of the majority to put down and demolish the one-ledge theory; and hence it is popularly considered absurd, anti-democratic, monstrous, and diabolical. Nevertheless, although there are few so daring as to violate the general sentiment on this subject, the question, with the vitality of a seven-headed dragon, is continually springing up as much alive as ever, and can't be burned or flooded out either by fires of invective or oceans of vituperation.

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As an interesting feature in human nature, I may be permitted to say that, in general, you may determine a man's status by his views on this subject. Original owners in Comstock are one-ledgers by nature and instinct, whatever they may be by policy. Owners of out-side claims, proprietors of building sites, merchants, shop-keepers, traders, and speculators are many-ledgers under the all-powerful stimulus of interest. For myself, I have my private views, but my public sentiments assimilate with those of the many-ledgers. It is the best policy for a man who doesn't own a foot in a single ledge. If the mines in Mexico and South America are confined to one well-defined vein, as geologists contend, what does that prove? Simply that nature adopts certain specific laws in Mexico and South America. If trees grow there with their branches and fruits in the air, is it any reason why trees should not grow in Washoe with their branches and fruits in the ground? Silver mines in Mexico and South America may have one way of doing things, and silver mines in Washoe another. I am disposed to go it strong, therefore, on the many-ledge theory. I believe there are many ledges in Washoe. At all events there are many companies based upon ledges.

This complication of adverse interests gives rise to endless litigation. The records of the courts are crowded with suits, and every suit breeds another brood of suits. The halls of justice are crammed with litigants. Companies are pitted against companies, and individuals against individuals. Uncle Sam, who owns all the mines, magnanimously stands aloof and enjoys the fight over his own property. The whole district is racked with litigation. It is sapping the vitals of the community. There is money enough spent in law to build the Pacific Railroad. The whole trouble arises from the superabundance of legal counsel. 'Whenever a lawyer in California, from misfortune, incompetency, whisky, or any other cause, falls into a depression of finances, he straight way gathers up his books and starts for the silver regions.

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Acute by profession, he scents the remedy from afar. These gentlemen must have silver: they can't help it-must have it; and to have it must have litigation. Two evils therefore beset the Washoeites—many ledges and many lawyers. Either they must be everlastingly in court and submit to final exhaustion of all their precious ores, or pay these needy members of the bar what the world owes them, and let them travel. I don't doubt they will go somewhere else in the vicinity of silver. Pay them fifty thousand dollars apiece, and then raise a fund for the subsistence of absentees, and pay them for staying away. I venture to say such a course would obviate the first grand trouble. After that a court might be organized consisting of three Digger Indians. Keep them from fire-water, and my word for it, their decisions would be as satisfactory as any rendered by the most learned judges. It is true they might be corrupted by whisky; red blankets and cotton shirts might cause them to waver from the paths of rectitude; a string of beads to some favorite squaw might affect the eye or the understanding of the most stolid Digger; a bucketful of "hogadie" might confound the perceptive faculties of the great Winnemucca himself; but human nature must be taken as it is. The highest dignitaries in the land are subject to temptation. The Washoeites complain that their Bench is corrupt; they abuse their judges; hint in pretty strong terms that when a judge receives a heavy bonus of feet for services in the great cause of justice, other parties give more and get it all; in short, they raised such a hubbub last year that the judges resigned in disgust. I don't blame them. It would be impossible for them to satisfy every body. If they are honest men—and I have no reason to doubt it—they could. render no decision which would not make them unpopular with the disappointed party. What the Washoeites need is judges who will be faithfully dishonest and honestly faithless.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE ROUGHS AND THE SMOOTHS.

SO bitter are the feuds resulting from conflicting claims, under the one-ledge and many-ledge theories, that a summary method of settling disputes not unfrequently usurps the functions of the judiciary. An enterprising class of the community, known as the "roughs," may be relied upon in any emergency. For a reasonable consideration these accommodating gentlemen will espouse any cause, however hopeless in the eye of the law. Their habits of life are such that no conscientious scruples, touching questions of right and wrong, have the slightest influence over their acts. Most of them have killed from ten to a dozen men each in bar-room affrays, gambling difficulties, or murders of a general character; and to be "quick on the trigger" is their greatest boast. Without any particular line of business, save to frequent public places and look up casual jobs, they are recognized as Professional Blood-letters, and treated accordingly with great consideration by the peaceful members of the community. It is regarded as something of an honor to be intimately acquainted with the most noted of these sanguinary Professors. I am on terms of friendship with several of them myself, and regard the leader, who lost his nose in a recent bloody fight, as a gentleman of great personal suavity. I take special care, however, not to irritate him by any difference of opinion touching the various subjects that come under discussion during our social intercourse. It usually costs me four bits to remove a shadow from his brow, and a dollar or more to get him enthusiastic in his reminiscences of human butchery.

THE ROUGHS AND THE SMOOTHS. 383

During my third visit (last year) there was considerable excitement about town in consequence of the resignation of the judges, and an expected collision between the "roughs" in the service of two rival companies. One company squatted upon the premises belonging to another. The case did not admit of question, so far as I could see. It was an unjustifiable trespass without the shadow of right. But lawyers saw difficulties, and while they were busy concocting briefs and making learned speeches the squatter company was digging into the bowels of the earth and extracting precious ores that belonged to the other party. On the very day, and at the very hour, when it was confidently expected that two hundred men would come in collision, far down in the gloomy cavities of the earth, it was my fortune to be a visitor at the principal mine. The Superintendent invited me to explore it—adding, as an inducement, that his "roughs" were all ready, and there was momentary prospect of a bloody subterranean battle. His life had been threatened the day before by one of the squatter "roughs," but it was probably insured: at all events, the prospect of losing it did not seem to give him much concern. I must confess the proposition to go down a hundred and fifty feet under the earth and witness a bloody fight within the limited space of a drift or tunnel was novel if not attractive. There was no getting over it—I had to go.

The expected battle-ground, on our side, was occupied by as imposing a body of "roughs" as I had ever seen assembled together. They sat loosely and pleasantly on the dripping rocks, smoking their cigars, gossiping about the last free fight, and evidently enjoying the prospect of the business in hand. A gang of miners was picking and hammering into the disputed portion of the ledge. Another gang, backed by another body of "roughs," belonging to the squatter company, was picking and hammering on the other side. About three feet of rock separated the rival factions. I could distinctly hear the

THE ROUGHS AND THE SMOOTHS. 385

noise of the picks through the thin layer of rock. It was a very curious and impressive scene on our side; and doubtless was equally so on the other. The whole available space was not over six or eight feet in width by the same in height, and what range there might be through the adjoining tunnels or drifts which were, wrapped in darkness. A faint flickering halo from sundry candles, pasted with sticky mud against the rocks, dimly lighted the walls and casings of the mine; and shed a ghastly hue over the faces of our fighting men, to whom I was personally introduced by the Superintendent. Their features were in admirable keeping with the place and the occasion. One man had the end of his nose bitten off; another was ornamented with a magnificent scar across his cheek; a third had lost three fingers , a fourth was pitted with buck-shot; and so on. All men of mark; all notoriously crack fellows in their way, which was evidently, from the variety of pistols and knives with which they were garnished, a very bloody way. I was especially pleased with a wax-faced gentleman, with a square chin, a pig-eye, and a stovepipe hat. He was "on it" or I greatly misjudged his countenance.

"Gentlemen," said I, with all the deference due to such famous characters, "I see you're on it."

"You bet," was the answer.

"When do you expect the fight to come off?' I ventured to inquire.

"Oh, any time when they bust through that there wall. Guess they ain't eager for it. Likely as not they'll fizzle."

I made no comment upon this suggestion; but personally had no objection to the fizzle. It was not a pleasant place to be caught in a bloody affray. Balls fired, through a tunnel only six or eight feet square, or into a drift with a solid bank of rock at the end, would be likely to hit something. I was not interested to the extent of a leg or an arm, much less a foot.

As if to keep up a pleasant state of expectancy, blasts

THE ROUGHS AND THE SMOOTHS. 387

were let off now and then, causing a startling concussion of the air and a perceptible tremor of the earth. It is due to the cause of humanity to say that the rival factions always notified each other by certain signals when they were about to let off a blast, having no desire to take a snap judgment upon their enemies.

Between the picking and blasting, darkness and gun-powder, pistols, knives, and bloody conversation, unkempt miners and ferocious roughs, with a sprinkling of grit from overhead and the plashing of water. underfoot, I think the most rigid casuist will hold me blameless for whispering to the Superintendent, "This is a devil of a queer place; let's get out of it. Don't you smell brimstone?"

Unfortunately for the interest of my sketch the fight did not come off. The difficulty, I believe, was referred to one of those honest gentlemen in whom every body has confidence until his decision is made known. He may be a member of the bar or a member of the church; his character stands unimpeached before he makes his report. As a referee he is bound to decide according to the law and the evidence. But his report makes an explosion. Law and evidence suit some people and don't suit others, and referees have different modes of interpretation. It is a thankless, though it may be a profitable business. I will not say that the decision in the present case was not according to the law and the evidence, but it surprised me nevertheless. A friend of mine, who claimed to be in the Legitimate, sold out after he heard the decision. He would have made money had sold out before.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

CHINESE VS DIGGERS.

THE American is not the only race subject to trouble in the various operations of mining. Even the Celestials, who occupy the neglected nooks and corners of the mineral regions, have their share of adversity and disaster in the pursuit of wealth. Whenever they strike a good claim it belongs to some white man. He may never have seen or heard of it, or may have abandoned it and gone elsewhere; but if "John Chinaman" strikes it rich he comes back or sends his partner to take possession. The Digger Indians are learning the great lesson of civilization from their American benefactors. Driven from gulch to canon in their own country, they see that "Melican man" claims mines and minerals on general principles, and, like him, they despise an inferior race. They hate the Chinese because "Chinaman squaw ; no kill Injun like Melican man!" They seem to look upon the Celestials as a base imitation of the Indian race, without the redeeming quality of bravery. Hence the Diggers are singularly bitter in their hostility to these miserable interlopers, and tax them without mercy, or kill them whenever they get a chance. One Indian chief and his band made several thousand dollars last summer by following up the Chinese and compelling them, by force of arms, to pay taxes for the privilege of working the mines. Poor John is taxed by the State, by the Government, by every white pilgrim who jogs along with pick and shovel, by his own people, and finally by the Digger Indians. Sometimes he rouses himself up to a spirit of resistance against the exorbitant claims

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of the latter, and then ensues a scene to which no pencil save that of Hogarth could do justice.

The aboriginal tax-collectors come along stealthily—one, two, or three at a time, till ten or a dozen of them are gathered about the camp of the Celestials. Their arms consist of a bow and arrow, and a rude club or a spear; and their costume is seldom more than a deer-skin, or a ragged old blanket, with the merest pretense of a cincture round the loins. A wretched tatterdemalion set they are—poor, thriftless, and dirty; in no respect like the warrior chiefs of Mr. Fenimore Cooper, or the braves of the Hon. Augustus Murray. Still there is fight in. them if pushed to the bank. Their contempt for the Chinese is sublime. Having no knowledge of the Mongolian language, it becomes necessary that they should speak English, which is the available means of communication with the trespassers.

"Say, John!" says the Digger Chief, "what you do here?"

"Me workee. Who you?"

"Me Piute Cappen. Me kill plenty Melican man. Dis my lan'. You payee me, John. No payee me, got-tam, me killee you!"

"No got — velly poor Chinaman; how muchee you want?" "Fifty dollar."

"No got fifty dollar—velly poor. Melican man he catchee Chinaman; he makee Chinaman pay; no got fifty dollar. Melican man—"

"D—n Melican man! me no sabbe Melican man! Me Piute Cappen. S'pose you no payee me fifty dollar, me killee you!"

Generally the money is paid, after many protests and various lamentations; but where the Digger force is small, and the Celestials numerous, the cry of battle is raised, and then comes the tug-of war. When Greek meets Greek the spectacle may be very impressive; when Chinaman meets Digger it is absolutely gorgeous! Ne-

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gotiation has been prolonged without issue; the English language has been exhausted; the fight is inevitable. From every hole in the earth the valiant Celestials rush forth, armed with picks and shovels, tin pans, platters, gongs, and kettles—every thing that can be made available for warlike purposes in the emergency of the moment. They beat their pans, blow their wind instruments, shriek, shout, laugh, make horrible faces, and perform the most frightful antics, in the hope of striking terror into the ranks of the foe. In every conceivable way they tax invention to make themselves hideous; poke their tongues out; double themselves up; hop on one leg; squat on the ground like frogs; rush furiously toward the enemy, and furiously retire. The hills and forests resound with their barbarous cries and the deafening clatter of their tin kettles and gongs. Meantime the Diggers are not idle. Adepts in the artifices of barbarian war, they are in no degree intimidated by the ferocious demonstrations of the enemy. A pistol or a shot-gun has its terrors, but they are up to the flimsy substitute of loud noises and empty threats. While-the foe is thus wasting his vital powers upon the air, Digger goes in with his clubs, spears, or bows and arrows. A few pricks of the barbed instruments generally ends the battle—save when the Celestial party can muster up an old shot-gun or a pistol, in which case they fight with heroic desperation, and sometimes come off victorious. But a pistol or gun in the hands of the enemy brings them to terms very speedily—and thus are they forced to pay the tax that breaks the camel's back. It ought to be a consolation to them to know that they do it for the benefit of civilization. Every dime they pay benefits some white whisky-dealer in Virginia City or Carson, or some other civilized place.

I have mainly confined myself in the foregoing sketches to a delineation of the characteristic features of Virginia City and its surroundings, during the excitement which prevailed in the latter part of 1863; reserving for

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another and more serious report a detailed account of the mines and mills. The progress of Washoe has been unexampled in the history of mining. No country of which I have any knowledge has made so rapid an advance, and with so little benefit to capitalists or individuals. That there is great wealth of mineral in the country is beyond question; that a very bad use has been made of it, so far, is equally undeniable.

Allow me now, as the result of careful observation and grave deliberation, to whisper a word in your ear, gentle reader. Do you own stocks in the Ophir, the Savage, the Chollar, the Gould and Curry, the Potosi, the Yellow Jacket, or other prominent leads, and would you like to know what you had better do with them—whether sell them or hold on to them? I will tell you candidly; if the stocks were mine, I'd—think about it! Are you the possessor of a few thousand dollars which you'd like to invest to good advantage, and would it be a promising speculation to invest in one of the three companies on the Comstock ledge, that pays dividends at the present writing? Now, I'll tell you candidly what I would do if I had a few thousand dollars to spare I'd start on a foot tour through Tartary, and wind up with a camel-ride through Persia!