CHAPTER XX.

One bright morning, toward the latter part of the month of September, I left Marysville for a drive to General Sutler’s residence, situated about eight miles below Marysville. You cross Feather River at Yuba city, and follow the banks of this lovely stream, the scene varied and beautified by nature’s incomparable adornments, until the picturesque mansion of the affable and dignified general greets the eye. The road leads to the back entrance of the spacious, square court-yard, which is surrounded by a range of buildings on three sides. Several large and stately trees rear their umbrageous branches far above the roofs of the adobe buildings, which, from their sylvan retreat, peep out a ready welcome to the tired stranger. The grounds around the dwelling are tastefully and beautifully adorned with numerous parterres, some of which are inclosed with hedges of cactus. Here I saw the first cultivated rose that had greeted my eye since leaving New England. How the sight of those roses carried me back to the neat New England homes, embowered with honey-suckle and roses! It was actually fragrant with home, and home associations. On one side of the gardens extended a flourishing vineyard, the products of which amply repaid the labor expended thereon.

We were invited by the general to enter his pleasant-looking domicile, which invitation we cheerfully accepted. We were regaled with grapes, as luscious, I dare say, as the forbidden fruit which tempted the occupants of paradise. The wines proffered,--the produce of the vines of California,--having attained age, were pronounced of an excellent quality in substance and flavor. Sweet music, discoursed by one of the general’s sons, enhanced the pleasure of this often-remembered visit.

The Indians in the immediate vicinity are devoted to the general’s service; while the only remuneration they ask or expect is their food. His house servants are all the female Diggers. The general’s family carriage is drawn by two sleek-looking mules; and the driver’s box is occupied by a Digger Indian, in costume á la fancy. Mrs. Sutter generally denies herself to all visitors; but the regret generated by her absence speedily vanishes in the presence of the affable, courteous general, who ever welcomes his visitors with a cordiality inseparable from the man, whose integrity never bent to wrong or pusillanimous expediency, and who, armed intellectually with the panoply of justice, has courage to sustain it, under all and any circumstances.

We arrived back to Marysville just as the red orb of day touched the rim of the western horizon, covering it all with crimson and gold, and filling the world with a flood of evening glory.

I was often amused, while sojourning at the Tremont, by witnessing the transformations effected by a change of apparel on the inhabitants of the mountains, when they made temporary visits to the valleys. One day, a weary and care-worn-looking miner entered the bar-room of the hotel. Nought of his countenance was visible save his eyes and nose; for over his brow was drawn a soiled Kossuth hat; while the lower part of his face was entirely concealed by an abundant growth of hair. He deposited his blankets upon the floor, advanced to the bar-keeper, and inquired for the proprietor of the house. To him this soiled and travelled-stained miner delivered up thousands for safe keeping. He seated himself in the gentlemen’s parlor, eyeing intently for some moments an open piano. Upon his advancing toward it, and seating himself upon the music-stool, a smile, bordering on derision, involuntarily passed from one to another of the occupants of the room. The smile, however, was speedily changed to looks of astonishment, when, after running his fingers hastily over the keys, music such as we sometimes hear in our dreams, but _very_ seldom in every-day life, gushed upon their astonished senses. The air was “Sweet Home.” He accompanied the instrument with a voice of surpassing melody, which penetrated to the ladies’ rooms, and brought them en masse to the stairs, where they remained almost spell-bound, while he played and sang piece after piece, seemingly engrossed by heart-awakening memories of other days and other lands, and wholly unconscious of the presence of listeners who had gathered around him. As he was about midway in the execution of that plaintive song, “Katy Darling,” he suddenly ceased, became aware of the attention he was attracting, caught up his old, greasy hat, and vamosed.

When next he appeared in their midst, the metamorphosis was so complete as to utterly prevent recognition, had he not again seated himself at the piano. He remained several weeks at the hotel, and often delighted us with specimens of his musical talent. He was considered by connoisseurs as the greatest performer upon the piano in all California.

I never saw a miner without thinking how little one could judge, by the present appearance, of his origin or past life, for there were those laboring in the gold mines of California who had held important offices of trust in the Atlantic states. The sons of wealthy southern planters, too, were there, laboring as hard as their fathers’ slaves at home, but reaping a far richer harvest of gold. People who at home never performed any manual labor, there would not hesitate to stand in water up to their knees for days and weeks together, if, by so doing, they could heap high their coffers.

The good fortune of a lady in California, which came under my especial observation, I will here record. Upon the arrival at Marysville of one of the up-river boats, a fine-looking lady, whose age might perhaps be thirty or thereabouts, came to the Tremont Hotel, and desired an interview with the proprietor. She informed him she was entirely destitute of funds, as the journey from New York had been more expensive than she had expected, and begged, as a favor, the loan of twenty dollars. Could she obtain that amount, she intended to pursue her way to Downieville, where she hoped and expected to find a friend and relative. The proprietor accordingly proffered the required sum, although somewhat doubtful of receiving it again, or even of seeing the recipient. The next morning she resumed her journey; and the remembrance of this fine-looking widow was obliterated by the occurrence of other and more important affairs. Five or six weeks had elapsed, when, one day, she astonished us all by appearing in our midst. Upon meeting the proprietor, “Oh,” said she, “I have been _so_ successful! and now I have come to liquidate old debts.” The nature of the success was this: She arrived at Downieville, found the one of whom she was in pursuit, and he built her a canvas house, procured her a cooking-stove, a long board table, and some wooden benches, and she commenced keeping a boarding-house. She soon had thirty or forty boarders, for each of which she received twelve dollars per week. One day, as she was sweeping her floor,--which, by the way, was nothing but the earth,--she saw something glitter. Upon examination, it proved to be a lump of gold. She searched farther, and found the earth was full of particles of gold. She instantly summoned to her presence the friend who had assisted her in locating herself in such rich diggings. They removed the table, benches, and stove. Upon the last-named utensil a dinner was in progress; but who would think of preparing a dinner, even if it were near the dinner hour, should they suddenly find themselves in possession of such rich diggings. This land, which she had appropriated to her own use, was situated in a central part of the town of Downieville. It had never been prospected, for the very reason that its appearance betokened nought to impress the beholder with the idea that gold existed there in such quantities.

That day they two took from the kitchen floor, as she termed it, five hundred dollars, mostly in lumps. Every day witnessed similar success. As soon as she could think of leaving her treasures for two days, she hastened to Marysville to cancel her debts. Afterwards she became a frequent visitor at the house. I became very well acquainted with her; and one day she related the cause of her leaving home alone, to seek a home in California. She was married very young, and in opposition to the wishes of her parents. Unfortunately, her married life proved miserable in the extreme. After a lapse of years, she returned penniless, with one child, to the home of her youth, where she received a hearty welcome from her father; but the gentle, loving mother, whom she had forsaken, had gone long since to the spirit-land, and her place in the family circle was occupied by another. That other regretted the daughter’s return, and manifested her disapproval by unkindness to the child. At one time, when the child was suffering intensely from sickness, child-like he refused to take his medicine, whereupon the grandmother struck him. In twenty-four hours after that, the boy was a corpse. After the burial of her boy, the daughter never looked upon the step-mother again. She told her father, that, if he would furnish her with means, she would seek her fortune in California; and she did, in the manner above related. She acquired a fortune; but the recollection of her boy, at times, would come floating over the ocean of memory, overshadowing all the bright hopes and sunny feelings of her heart.

It was a novel sight to me to watch the emigrant wagons, as they passed through Marysville to their different destinations. How dusty and travel-stained they appeared, after a four and five months’ journey across those almost boundless prairies, after fording those mighty streams, whose waters had been navigated by nought save the red man’s canoe, effecting a passage through lonely cañons and over towering mountains, enduring almost every hardship the human frame is capable of sustaining, and finally had reached the desired goal!

How emaciated the cattle looked; and no wonder, for how many long and weary miles they had travelled! I almost fancied those old oxen actually smiled for joy at arriving at their destination; yet many of their number had given out on the way, and their bones lay bleaching in the sun.

A lady who had travelled across the plains told me how sad it made her feel when she saw the cattle giving out on the way. Said she, “Those dumb beasts would express so much sorrow in their faces when they began to falter in their pace, they would look so wishfully into the face of the teamster, and low so mournfully, I knew they understood their situation.”

Notwithstanding the sufferings and hardships those emigrants endure while on their “winding way,” all is forgotten when they reach the settlements. Their swarthy, sun-burned faces are radiant with joy as they pass along.

It is astonishing how much one of those wagons will hold. I saw one passing with eight holes cut in the canvas on one side, and a child’s face peeping out at every one of these holes. Besides the children it contained, there were cats, dogs, beds and bedding, cooking-stove, tin pans, and kettles.

Two emigrant wagons passed through town one day, each driven by two beautiful-looking girls--beautiful, although browned by exposure to the weather. In their hands they carried one of those tremendous, long ox-whips, which, by great exertion, they flourished, to the evident admiration of all beholders. Their surpassing beauty gained for them the appellation of the “belles of the plains.” In two weeks from the time they attracted so much attention, driving each three yoke of oxen through town, they were married to gentlemen whom they had never seen until they arrived in California, and who had never seen them until they beheld them as teamsters.

I often saw ladies at the hotel who had resided eight and twelve months at different bars far up in the mountains, where they were the only females, and during all this time would not see a lady to speak to. You can imagine how fast they would talk, upon getting where there were plenty of their own sex.

I was quite amused at an incident related by one of those ladies, who had been for eight months thus isolated from all society. Her husband kept a boarding-house, where he accommodated about thirty miners, which were all that worked at that place. A short time previous to the occurrence of the scene here related, these miners had had some trouble with a tribe of Indians whose rancheria was not far distant. They had heard several times that they meditated an attack upon all the whites in their vicinity, and for some time they had been upon their guard; but, as they heard nothing from them, they had relaxed their watchfulness. One day, when they were all at work in the mines, and this lady alone in the house, instantaneously a deafening war-whoop rang in her ears. She ran to the door, and saw, at a little distance from the house, about two hundred painted Indians, armed with bows, arrows, and hatchets, advancing at a rapid pace. She rushed from the house, frightened half to death, (as she expressed her feelings,) and ran, screaming, to the spot where the men were at work. They, hearing the war-whoop and her screams, and seeing the whole tribe making such a rapid descent, naturally supposed they were coming to exterminate them; and if so, flight was out of the question. There was no alternative but to meet the foe, and fight with picks and shovels; for their fire-arms were in the house, and the Indians were between the house and where they were. They directed Mrs.---- to flee across the river and into the woods on the opposite side, and secrete herself as quickly as possible. The river was so deep, the water so wild and dark-looking, and spanned by so narrow a timber, that, upon any ordinary occasion, she would have hesitated a long time before venturing across; but now, with the velocity of the wind almost, she crossed the timber, and rushed with headlong speed for the woods. Before reaching it, however, she passed several large excavations in the earth; and, thinking one of these would afford her a grand hiding-place, she jumped into it, and crouched down to await her fate. Said she, “It would be impossible to describe my feelings while in this hole. I expected every moment to see a dozen dark-skinned savages, glaring at me with their murderous, blood-thirsty eyes. I could endure it no longer: I must crawl out, and rush on. After great exertion, I got out, and, not once daring to look around, made all haste for the woods.

“Reaching it, I would hide myself for a few moments, and then think, ‘They will surely find me here; I must find a better place than this;’ and then leave it in search of another. In this way I hid myself a dozen times. Finally, I climbed up into the branches of a large tree, and there remained, for how long I could not tell--the time seemed interminable. Then I heard some one shouting. I was so terrified, I could scarcely retain my seat. Soon I heard my own name called, and recognized my husband’s voice. _He_ was alive, then, and all the others were murdered! When he appeared in sight, he was laughing. I thought him insane. Said he, “Come down from the tree; it is all right. I thought I should never find you. I have been hunting these two hours.”

It seemed these Indians had started, in honor of some great occasion, to visit a neighboring tribe. They had painted and armed themselves, as they ever do when they start upon a journey to celebrate any great event. Their object in raising such a war-whoop was, doubtless, a sportive one; for they passed the miners with their countenances illumined with a broad grin.

The lady, who was from the New England States, returned to her house with some idea of the sufferings of the early New England settlers. It was days before she recovered her usual equanimity.

Another lady told me that she was the first who arrived at Cañon Creek, situated a hundred miles from Marysville, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains; and that, when she arrived at the top of the mountain which overlooked the ravine in which the miners were at work, they desisted from their labors, gave three hearty cheers, and came to the place where she was seated on a mule. Their delight was so great at seeing a live woman in their midst, that they actually lifted the mule upon which she was riding from his feet, and carried them both down the mountain. Those miners, who had lived so long in their little cabins, secluded from the world, deprived of the cheering presence of woman, knew then, if they had never before known, how to appreciate the opposite sex.

As a specimen of the sort of accommodations a traveller is likely to meet with in a journey through the more unsettled parts of the mountains, I will describe a public-house on the trail (as it was called) that I once had occasion to stop at. It was a little log shanty, kept by a woman--of what color I was unable to determine, on account of the dirt upon her person. She hailed from out West, somewhere. I think it must have been far West, where the cleansing properties of soap and water were not often tested. There was no floor in this shanty but the earth, and even that looked as if it had never been swept. How could I stay, and eat, and sleep in so much dirt? There was no alternative; night was close at hand, and no other _public-house_ within many miles. She prepared us a _good supper_, as she termed it, in which, I presume, there was a good supply of dirt, although I did not stop to scrutinize it very closely. After we had partaken of the cheer set before us, she washed the dishes, turned round, and dashed the dish-water up in one corner of the apartment, wiped her hands upon her dirty apology for a dress, and sat down for a smoke. For sleeping accommodations, there were berths built up against the side of this shanty. I wrapped my own blankets around me, and crawled into one of them, where I remained until daylight. Right glad was I when it appeared, and I hoped to leave her domicile without being encumbered with any of her live stock; but in this I was disappointed.

At one time there came down from the mountains the most comical-looking old couple I ever beheld. They were English, and had emigrated to the Western States ten years previous to the date of my story. They had been in California two years, during which time they had never left the mines. She worked mining with her husband. It was the commencement of the rainy season when they left the mines; and all she had on, to protect her from the weather, was a thin, faded calico gown--one which she had brought from England ten years before; and it was the best garment she possessed. Over her shoulders she wore a calico jacket, and on her head an apology for a sun-bonnet. Her husband wore a Mackintosh, which reached to his heels, and on his head an old hat, and oh, what a hat! Altogether, they were the most forlorn-looking couple one would wish to see. They carried penury in their very countenances. I pitied her so, I gave her a gentleman’s dressing-gown, which had been left at the hotel. It was rather soiled, to be sure; but then it was better than anything which she had. When she went away, she wore it off. They had started home to England, by the way of New York. When the bar-keeper requested him to register his name, he made a cross; and she was as ignorant as he. At night she asked me if I would give her a room with good fastenings to the doors and windows, as they had a good deal of gold dust with them. I inquired to know where it was, as they brought no baggage with them, except a little bag, which she carried on her arm. She said it was in belts around their waists. I told her, if it were much, she had better deliver it up to the proprietor of the house for safe keeping. Said she, “Oh, no, I would not lose sight of it for anything! I have five thousand dollars in my belt, and my husband has the same.” I advised her to send it by express to New York, as they might be robbed on the way. She said they could not afford to pay the percentage for its transportation, when they could carry it, and save that money. So they started for New York by the way of Nicaragua.

I often thought of them after they left, and felt assured in my own mind that they would lose their money before they arrived home. They were two very simple people, and betrayed by their looks evident signs of fear of robbery. The next news I heard of them was, that they were both drowned at Virgin Bay, while going from the shore in a boat to get on board the steamer. The particulars were these: The boat was loaded with passengers; and, it being rather rough, they became frightened, and all rushed to one side, and capsized her. This old couple, having so much gold about their persons, sank immediately; while those who were not burdened with gold were quickly picked up by other boats. Thus these two old people, who had lived in poverty all their days, died rich, clutching the treasures for which they had toiled so hard, and to obtain which, they had denied themselves the comforts of life. The school of poverty in which they had passed the greater part of their lives, had fostered the spirit of covetousness to such a degree, that it was finally the means of their losing their lives.