The gold hunters

About the beginning of the year 1851, the rage for emigration to California from the United States was at its height. All sorts and conditions of men, old, young, and middle-age...

On our arrival we found the population busily employed in celebrating one of their innumerable _dias de fiesta_. The streets presented a very gay appearance. The natives, all in...

The entrance to San Francisco harbor is between precipitous rocky headlands about a mile apart, which have received the name of the Golden Gate. The harbor itself is a large she...

A most useful quality for a California emigrant was one which the Americans possess in a pre-eminent degree--a natural versatility of disposition and adaptability to every descr...

I remained in San Francisco till the worst of the rainy season was over, when I determined to go and try my luck in the mines; so, leaving my valuables in charge of a friend in...

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 c...

Small parties of them were constantly to be seen in Hangtown, wandering listlessly about the street, begging for bread, meat, or old clothes. These Digger Indians, as they are c...

The miners on the creek were nearly all Americans, and exhibited a great variety of mankind. Some, it was very evident, were men who had hitherto only worked with their heads; o...

We worked our claim very successfully for about six weeks, when the creek at last became so dry that we had not water enough to run our long tom, and the claim was rendered for...

I made inquiries as to my route, and found that the first habitation I should reach was a ranch called the Grizzly-Bear House, about fifteen miles off. The trail had been well t...

In this part of the country the pine trees are of an immense size, and of every variety. The most graceful is what is called the “sugar pine.” It is perfectly straight and cylin...

I arrived about dusk at a ranch called the “Grass Valley House,” situated in a forest of pines. It was a clapboard house, built round an old log cabin which formed one corner of...

From Foster’s Bar I set out for Downieville. On leaving the river, I had as usual a long hill to climb, but once on the top, the trail followed the backbone of the ridge, and wa...

A few weeks before my arrival there, Downieville had been the scene of great excitement on one of those occasions when the people took on themselves the administration and execu...

Without having visited some distant place in the mountains, such as Downieville, it was impossible to realize fully the extraordinary extent to which the country had, in so shor...

I returned to Downieville the next day, and as the weather was now getting rather cold and disagreeable, and I did not wish to be caught quite so far up in the mountains by the...

While at this camp, I went down the river two or three miles to see a place called Mississippi Bar, where a company of Chinamen were at work. After an hour’s climbing along the...

I had occasion to return to San Francisco at this time, and the journey was about the most unpleasant I ever performed. The roads had been getting worse all the time, and were q...

The long tract of mountainous country lying north and south, which comprises the mining districts, is divided into the northern and southern mines--the former having communicati...

The want of water was the great obstacle in the way of mining at Moquelumne Hill. As it stood so much higher than the surrounding country, there were no streams which could be i...

If one can imagine the booths and penny theaters on a race-course left for a year or two till they are tattered and torn, and blackened with the weather, he will have some idea...

From Angel’s Camp I went on a few miles to Carson’s Creek, on which there was a small camp, lying at the foot of a hill, which was named after the same man. On its summit a quar...

A company of Mexican bull-fighters were at this time performing in Sonora every Sunday afternoon. The amphitheater was a large well-built place, erected for the purpose on a sma...

It was about one o’clock in the morning when the fire broke out. I happened to be awake at the time, and at the first alarm I jumped up, and, looking out of my window, I saw a h...

On the 4th of July I went over to Columbia, four miles distant from Sonora, where there were to be great doings, as the latter place had hardly yet recovered from the effects of...

The only miners on the Creek were Frenchmen, two or three of whom lived in a very neat log cabin, close to the tunnel. Behind it was a small kitchen-garden in a high state of cu...

After a month or two spent on the Tuolumne and Merced rivers, and in the more sparsely populated section of country lying still farther south, I returned to Sonora, on my way to...