CHAPTER VI.
HANGTOWN--FIRST IMPRESSION OF “THE DIGGINS”--IDEA OF A MINING TOWN--GAMBLING HOUSES--THE STREET--THE STORES--JEW SLOP-SHOPS--THE JEWS: THEIR PECULIARITIES--HANGTOWN ON A SUNDAY--BOWIE-KNIVES AND REVOLVERS--GOLD-DEPOSITS--METHOD OF WASHING--LONG TOMS--ROCKERS--PROSPECTING--MIDDLETOWN--OUR MENAGE.
The town of Placerville--or Hangtown, as it was commonly called--consisted of one long straggling street of clapboard houses and log cabins, built in a hollow at the side of a creek, and surrounded by high and steep hills.
The diggings here had been exceedingly rich--men used to pick the chunks of gold out of the crevices of the rocks in the ravines with no other tool than a bowie-knife; but these days had passed, and now the whole surface of the surrounding country showed the amount of real hard work which had been done. The beds of the numerous ravines which wrinkle the faces of the hills, the bed of the creek, and all the little flats alongside of it, were a confused mass of heaps of dirt and piles of stones lying around the innumerable holes, about six feet square and five or six feet deep, from which they had been thrown out. The original course of the creek was completely obliterated, its waters being distributed into numberless little ditches, and from them conducted into the “long toms” of the miners through canvass hoses, looking like immensely long slimy sea-serpents.
The number of bare stumps of what had once been gigantic pine trees, dotted over the naked hill-sides surrounding the town, showed how freely the axe had been used, and to what purpose was apparent in the extent of the town itself, and in the numerous log-cabins scattered over the hills, in situations apparently chosen at the caprice of the owners, but in reality with a view to be near to their diggings, and at the same time to be within a convenient distance of water and firewood.
Along the whole length of the creek, as far as one could see, on the banks of the creek, in the ravines, in the middle of the principal and only street of the town, and even inside some of the houses, were parties of miners, numbering from three or four to a dozen, all hard at work, some laying into it with picks, some shovelling the dirt into the “long toms,” or with long-handled shovels washing the dirt thrown in, and throwing out the stones, while others were working pumps or baling water out of the holes with buckets. There was a continual noise and clatter, as mud, dirt, stones, and water were thrown about in all directions; and the men, dressed in ragged clothes and big boots, wielding picks and shovels, and rolling big rocks about, were all working as if for their lives, going into it with a will, and a degree of energy, not usually seen among labouring men. It was altogether a scene which conveyed the idea of hard work in the fullest sense of the words, and in comparison with which a gang of railway navvies would have seemed to be merely a party of gentlemen amateurs playing at working _pour passer le temps_.
A stroll through the village revealed the extent to which the ordinary comforts of life were attainable. The gambling houses, of which there were three or four, were of course the largest and most conspicuous buildings; their mirrors, chandeliers, and other decorations, suggesting a style of life totally at variance with the outward indications of everything around them.
The street itself was in many places knee-deep in mud, and was plentifully strewed with old boots, hats, and shirts, old sardine-boxes, empty tins of preserved oysters, empty bottles, worn-out pots and kettles, old ham-bones, broken picks and shovels, and other rubbish too various to particularise. Here and there, in the middle of the street, was a square hole about six feet deep, in which one miner was digging, while another was baling the water out with a bucket, and a third, sitting alongside the heap of dirt which had been dug up, was washing it in a rocker. Waggons, drawn by six or eight mules or oxen, were navigating along the street, or discharging their strangely-assorted cargoes at the various stores; and men in picturesque rags, with large muddy boots, long beards, and brown faces, were the only inhabitants to be seen.
There were boarding-houses on the _table-d’hôte_ principle, in each of which forty or fifty hungry miners sat down three times a-day to an oilcloth-covered table, and in the course of about three minutes surfeited themselves on salt pork, greasy steaks, and pickles. There were also two or three “hotels,” where much the same sort of fare was to be had, with the extra luxuries of a table-cloth and a superior quality of knives and forks.
The stores were curious places. There was no specialty about them--everything was to be found in them which it could be supposed that any one could possibly want, excepting fresh beef (there was a butcher who monopolised the sale of that article).
On entering a store, one would find the storekeeper in much the same style of costume as the miners, very probably sitting on an empty keg at a rickety little table, playing “seven up” for “the liquor” with one of his customers.
The counter served also the purpose of a bar, and behind it was the usual array of bottles and decanters, while on shelves above them was an ornamental display of boxes of sardines, and brightly-coloured tins of preserved meats and vegetables with showy labels, interspersed with bottles of champagne and strangely-shaped bottles of exceedingly green pickles, the whole being arranged with some degree of taste.
Goods and provisions of every description were stowed away promiscuously all round the store, in the middle of which was invariably a small table with a bench, or some empty boxes and barrels for the miners to sit on while they played cards, spent their money in brandy and oysters, and occasionally got drunk.
The clothing trade was almost entirely in the hands of the Jews, who are very numerous in California, and devote their time and energies exclusively to supplying their Christian brethren with the necessary articles of wearing apparel.
In travelling through the mines from one end to the other, I never saw a Jew lift a pick or shovel to do a single stroke of work, or, in fact, occupy himself in any other way than in selling slops. While men of all classes and of every nation showed such versatility in betaking themselves to whatever business or occupation appeared at the time to be most advisable, without reference to their antecedents, and in a country where no man, to whatever class of society he belonged, was in the least degree ashamed to roll up his sleeves and dig in the mines for gold, or to engage in any other kind of manual labour, it was a very remarkable fact that the Jews were the only people among whom this was not observable.
They were very numerous--so much so, that the business to which they confined themselves could hardly have yielded to every individual a fair average California rate of remuneration. But they seemed to be proof against all temptation to move out of their own limited sphere of industry, and of course, concentrated upon one point as their energies were, they kept pace with the go-ahead spirit of the times. Clothing of all sorts could be bought in any part of the mines more cheaply than in San Francisco, where rents were so very high that retail prices of everything were most exorbitant; and scarcely did twenty or thirty miners collect in any out-of-the-way place, upon newly discovered diggings, before the inevitable Jew slop-seller also made his appearance, to play his allotted part in the newly-formed community.
The Jew slop-shops were generally rattletrap erections about the size of a bathing-machine, so small that one half of the stock had to be displayed suspended from projecting sticks outside. They were filled with red and blue flannel shirts, thick boots, and other articles suited to the wants of the miners, along with Colt’s revolvers and bowie-knives, brass jewellery, and diamonds like young Koh-i-Noors.
Almost every man, after a short residence in California, became changed to a certain extent in his outward appearance. In the mines especially, to the great majority of men, the usual style of dress was one to which they had never been accustomed; and those to whom it might have been supposed such a costume was not so strange, or who were even wearing the old clothes they had brought with them to the country, acquired a certain California air, which would have made them remarkable in whatever part of the world they came from, had they been suddenly transplanted there. But to this rule also the Jews formed a very striking exception. In their appearance there was nothing whatever at all suggestive of California; they were exactly the same unwashed-looking, slobbery, slip-shod individuals that one sees in every seaport town.
During the week, and especially when the miners were all at work, Hangtown was comparatively quiet; but on Sundays it was a very different place. On that day the miners living within eight or ten miles all flocked in to buy provisions for the week--to spend their money in the gambling rooms--to play cards--to get their letters from home--and to refresh themselves, after a week’s labour and isolation in the mountains, in enjoying the excitement of the scene according to their tastes.
The gamblers on Sundays reaped a rich harvest; their tables were thronged with crowds of miners, betting eagerly, and of course losing their money. Many men came in, Sunday after Sunday, and gambled off all the gold they had dug during the week, having to get credit at a store for their next week’s provisions, and returning to their diggings to work for six days in getting more gold, which would all be transferred the next Sunday to the gamblers, in the vain hope of recovering what had been already lost.
The street was crowded all day with miners loafing about from store to store, making their purchases and asking each other to drink, the effects of which began
[Illustration:
J. D. BORTHWICK, DEL^{T.} M & N HANHART, LITH.
MONTÉ IN THE MINES]
to be seen at an early hour in the number of drunken men, and the consequent frequency of rows and quarrels. Almost every man wore a pistol or a knife--many wore both--but they were rarely used. The liberal and prompt administration of Lynch law had done a great deal towards checking the wanton and indiscriminate use of these weapons on any slight occasion. The utmost latitude was allowed in the exercise of self-defence. In the case of a row, it was not necessary to wait till a pistol was actually levelled at one’s head--if a man made even a motion towards drawing a weapon, it was considered perfectly justifiable to shoot him first, if possible. The very prevalence of the custom of carrying arms thus in a great measure was a cause of their being seldom used. They were never drawn out of bravado, for when a man once drew his pistol, he had to be prepared to use it, and to use it quickly, or he might expect to be laid low by a ball from his adversary; and again, if he shot a man without sufficient provocation, he was pretty sure of being accommodated with a hempen cravat by Judge Lynch.
The storekeepers did more business on Sundays than in all the rest of the week; and in the afternoon crowds of miners could be seen dispersing over the hills in every direction, laden with the provisions they had been purchasing, chiefly flour, pork, and beans, and perhaps a lump of fresh beef.
There was only one place of public worship in Hangtown at that time, a very neat little wooden edifice, which belonged to some denomination of Methodists, and seemed to be well attended.
There was also a newspaper published two or three times a-week, which kept the inhabitants “posted up” as to what was going on in the world.
The richest deposits of gold were found in the beds and banks of the rivers, creeks, and ravines, in the flats on the convex side of the bends of the streams, and in many of the flats and hollows high up in the mountains. The precious metal was also abstracted from the very hearts of the mountains, through tunnels drifted into them for several hundred yards; and in some places real mining was carried on in the bowels of the earth by means of shafts sunk to the depth of a couple of hundred feet.
The principal diggings in the neighbourhood of Hangtown were surface diggings; but, with the exception of river diggings, every kind of mining operation was to be seen in full force.
The gold is found at various depths from the surface; but the dirt on the bed-rock is the richest, as the gold naturally in time sinks through earth and gravel, till it is arrested in its downward progress by the solid rock.
The diggings here were from four to six or seven feet deep; the layer of “pay-dirt” being about a couple of feet thick on the top of the bed-rock.
I should mention that “dirt” is the word universally used in California to signify the substance dug, earth, clay, gravel, loose slate, or whatever other name might be more appropriate. The miners talk of rich dirt and poor dirt, and of “stripping off” so many feet of “top dirt” before getting to “pay-dirt,” the latter meaning dirt with so much gold in it that it will pay to dig it up and wash it.
The apparatus generally used for washing was a “long tom,” which was nothing more than a wooden trough from twelve to twenty-five feet long, and about a foot wide. At the lower end it widens considerably, and the floor of it is there a sheet of iron pierced with holes half an inch in diameter, under which is placed a flat box a couple of inches deep. The long tom is set at a slight inclination over the place which is to be worked, and a stream of water is kept running through it by means of a hose, the mouth of which is inserted in a dam built for the purpose high enough up the stream to gain the requisite elevation; and while some of the party shovel the dirt into the tom as fast as they can dig it up, one man stands at the lower end stirring up the dirt as it is washed down, separating the stones and throwing them out, while the earth and small gravel falls with the water through the sieve into the “ripple-box.” This box is about five feet long, and is crossed by two partitions. It is also placed at an inclination, so that the water falling into it keeps the dirt loose, allowing the gold and heavy particles to settle to the bottom, while all the lighter stuff washes over the end of the box along with the water. When the day’s work is over, the dirt is taken from the “ripple-box” and is “washed out” in a “wash-pan,” a round tin dish, eighteen inches in diameter, with shelving sides three or four inches deep. In washing out a panful of dirt, it has to be placed in water deep enough to cover it over; the dirt is stirred up with the hands, and the gravel thrown out; the pan is then taken in both hands, and by an indescribable series of manœuvres all the dirt is gradually washed out of it, leaving nothing but the gold and a small quantity of black sand. This black sand is mineral (some oxide or other salt of iron), and is so heavy that it is not possible to wash it all out; it has to be blown out of the gold afterwards when dry.
Another mode of washing dirt, but much more tedious, and consequently only resorted to where a sufficient supply of water for a long tom could not be obtained, was by means of an apparatus called a “rocker” or “cradle.” This was merely a wooden cradle, on the top of which was a sieve. The dirt was put into this, and a miner, sitting alongside of it, rocked the cradle with one hand, while with a dipper in the other he kept baling water on to the dirt. This acted on the same principle as the “tom,” and had formerly been the only contrivance in use; but it was now seldom seen, as the long tom effected such a saving of time and labour. The latter was set immediately over the claim, and the dirt was shovelled into it at once, while a rocker had to be set alongside of the water, and the dirt was carried to it in buckets from the place which was being worked. Three men working together with a rocker--one digging, another carrying the dirt in buckets, and the third rocking the cradle--would wash on an average a hundred bucketfuls of dirt to the man in the course of the day. With a “long tom” the dirt was so easily washed that parties of six or eight could work together to advantage, and four or five hundred bucketfuls of dirt a-day to each one of the party was a usual day’s work.
I met a San Francisco friend in Hangtown practising his profession as a doctor, who very hospitably offered me quarters in his cabin, which I gladly accepted. The accommodation was not very luxurious, being merely six feet of the floor on which to spread my blankets. My host, however, had no better bed himself, and indeed it was as much as most men cared about. Those who were very particular preferred sleeping on a table or a bench when they were to be had; bunks and shelves were also much in fashion; but the difference in comfort was a mere matter of imagination, for mattresses were not known, and an earthen floor was quite as soft as any wooden board. Three or four miners were also inmates of the doctor’s cabin. They were quondam New South Wales squatters, who had been mining for several months in a distant part of the country, and were now going to work a claim about two miles up the creek from Hangtown. As they wanted another hand to work their long tom with them, I very readily joined their party. For several days we worked this place, trudging out to it when it was hardly daylight, taking with us our dinner, which consisted of beefsteaks and bread, and returning to Hangtown about dark; but the claim did not prove rich enough to satisfy us, so we abandoned it, and went “prospecting,” which means looking about for a more likely place.
A “prospecter” goes out with a pick and shovel, and a wash-pan; and to test the richness of a place he digs down till he reaches the dirt in which it may be expected that the gold will be found; and washing out a panful of this, he can easily calculate, from the amount of gold which he finds in it, how much could be taken out in a day’s work. An old miner, looking at the few specks of gold in the bottom of his pan, can tell their value within a few cents; calling it a twelve or a twenty cent “prospect,” as it may be. If, on washing out a panful of dirt, a mere speck of gold remained, just enough to swear by, such dirt was said to have only “the colour,” and was not worth digging. A twelve-cent prospect was considered a pretty good one; but in estimating the probable result of a day’s work, allowance had to be made for the time and labour to be expended in removing top-dirt, and in otherwise preparing the claim for being worked.
To establish one’s claim to a piece of ground, all that was requisite was to leave upon it a pick or shovel, or other mining tool. The extent of ground allowed to each individual varied in different diggings from ten to thirty feet square, and was fixed by the miners themselves, who also made their own laws, defining the rights and duties of those holding claims; and any dispute on such subjects was settled by calling together a few of the neighbouring miners, who would enforce the due observance of the laws of the diggings. After prospecting for two or three days, we concluded to take up a claim near a small settlement called Middletown, two or three miles distant from Hangtown. It was situated by the side of a small creek, in a rolling hilly country, and consisted of about a dozen cabins, one of which was a store supplied with flour, pork, tobacco, and other necessaries.
We found near our claim a very comfortable cabin, which the owner had deserted, and in which we established ourselves. We had plenty of firewood and water close to us, and being only two miles from Hangtown, we kept ourselves well supplied with fresh beef. We cooked our “dampers” in New South Wales fashion, and lived on the fat of the land, our bill of fare being beefsteaks, damper, and tea for breakfast, dinner, and supper. A damper is a very good thing, but not commonly seen in California, excepting among men from New South Wales. A quantity of flour and water, with a pinch or two of salt, is worked into a dough, and, raking down a good hardwood fire, it is placed on the hot ashes, and then smothered in more hot ashes to the depth of two or three inches, on the top of which is placed a quantity of the still burning embers. A very little practice enables one to judge from the feel of the crust when it is sufficiently cooked. The great advantage of a damper is, that it retains a certain amount of moisture, and is as good when a week old as when fresh baked. It is very solid and heavy, and a little of it goes a great way, which of itself is no small recommendation when one eats only to live.
Another sort of bread we very frequently made by filling a frying-pan with dough, and sticking it up on end to roast before the fire.
The Americans do not understand dampers. They either bake bread, using saleratus to make it rise, or else they make flapjacks, which are nothing more than pancakes made of flour and water, and are a very good substitute for bread when one is in a hurry, as they are made in a moment.
As for our beefsteaks, they could not be beat anywhere. A piece of an old iron-hoop, twisted into a serpentine form and laid on the fire, made a first-rate gridiron, on which every man cooked his steak to his own taste. In the matter of tea I am afraid we were dreadfully extravagant, throwing it into the pot in handfuls. It is a favourite beverage in the mines--morning, noon, and night--and at no time is it more refreshing than in the extreme heat of mid-day.
In the cabin two bunks had been fitted up, one above the other, made of clapboards laid crossways, but they were all loose and warped. I tried to sleep on them one night, but it was like sleeping on a gridiron; the smooth earthen floor was a much more easy couch.