Chapter XVI

I EXPLAIN TO THE PATIENT READER--PIONEERS--A LADY’S
BOOT--MAINSPRING--MEXICAN ROBBERS--VICTIMS OF PREJUDICE--WORKS ON
AMERICA--TWO PIGS--POWER OF THE HUMAN WILL.

_Sept. 1851._

In less than a fortnight we had a couple of canvas houses erected at Tuttle Town; each of these had a large fire-place and chimney, built of mud and stones, and surmounted by an empty barrel for a chimney-pot, after the popular architecture of the mines. Rowe and I occupied the small shanty, whilst in the larger one I had Barnes, Thomas, and a couple of English miners.

Our houses faced the main street of Tuttle Town; this at the time was indicated by stakes, there being as yet but three buildings in the place. Higher up the hill and near the main shaft were eight Mexican miners, whom I had hired for the purpose of quarrying the ore; having supplied these with about twenty yards of canvas, half a dozen raw bullock hides, an unlimited quantity of beans and a frying-pan, they made themselves very comfortable in their own way. I must not omit to mention that I had a canvas stable for our four horses, not that these required any shelter during the warm dry nights, but simply because I wished to avoid the inconvenience of losing twelve of my party at once, and finding some morning that my four horses and eight Mexicans had departed in company. Most of the Mexicans of California are from Sonora,[18] and horse-stealing is a characteristic weakness of that country. These people become such adepts at this trade, that I dare say if a party of them were to visit New York, they would steal the woolly colt out of Barnum’s Museum, although to lure a dead horse from a man of that gentleman’s acuteness, would require a great amount of ingenuity and patience.

Having now established myself at the mines, it is incumbent on me to explain to the patient reader my exact position there, as otherwise I shall be accused of having attempted to accomplish that for which I was incapacitated, a censure which I do not wish to be applied to me otherwise than as an author, in which quality I must perforce admit its truth.

My object at Tuttle Town was to test the value of the quartz vein there, and if with the assistance of such miners as I had engaged, I could satisfy myself that the vein held out sufficient promise of remuneration, it had been agreed between myself and a friend at San Francisco (he whose death I have recorded) that sufficient machinery should be erected to give the ore a fair experimental trial.

Amateur performances are seldom successful; and whether he wishes to fatten short-horn bullocks for an agricultural show, or take the helm of his yacht in a race for the cup, your amateur in one way or the other, generally “comes out wrong.” “Chacun a son metier,” is a motto more generally applicable than we are willing to admit, although there are few of us who have not tried something that we had no business with. Still man is emulous and vain, and until the end of the world fat Muggins will waltz, ignorant Foodle will talk, and travellers like myself will appear in print, and let us appear ever so ridiculous to others, we cannot, and will not, acknowledge that “every one to his trade” applies in any degree to us. But where a new course is opened for emulation, all may start in the race, and former experience bore so little on the subject of the quartz mines of California, and the means of extracting the gold therefrom, that I entered upon my new employment with no more difficulties to contend against than others in the same field. And this, be it understood, should always give courage and confidence in a new country, for although a little more retiring modesty would become both Muggins and Foodle (not forgetting myself in a literary capacity), the same diffidence in the mines of California would act as a bar to the research and experience so necessary for that country. And however we may fail in our exertions we ought not on that account, as is too often the case, to be ridiculed, for the failure of one brings experience to the many, and some one must “pioneer” the road. The prudent wait until the track is clear and the way is easy, and when every tree is blazed and every obstacle removed, they advance chuckling, of course, as the miner does who follows the prospecter; thus the pioneer and his follower resemble two boys, one of whom will not enter the river until his companion has tested the temperature of the water and the depth of the stream.

The quartz mines of California were discovered and opened almost entirely by men who had no previous knowledge of gold mining, therefore in many respects they worked in the dark, and from want of capital their hard bought experience served only to benefit others.

But the more fortunate of these bands of pioneers are now receiving an ample compensation for the privation they suffered, the toil they underwent, and the ridicule with which they were assailed. Auriferous quartz has been found in numerous cases to yield a rich return, even to the unscientific miner in California; how great then must be the wealth amassed, one would suppose, by those experienced gentlemen, who, with capital at their command, have been deputed by English companies to do the same work on a larger scale. Yet experience has proved that the great mining captains of the age have nothing to laugh at, even in the unsuccessful efforts of such a worm as I.

Unity and goodwill had been so long established amongst my little party, that we were soon comfortable in every respect, and actively employed. The vein extended for about half a mile, and the three spots I selected for exploration had each its band of men sinking a “prospecting” shaft.

Rowe and I had ample employment in superintending the operations, and testing the samples of ore that were daily selected from each pit; so with windlasses and buckets, crowbars and drills, gunpowder and fuze matches, pestles, mortars, retorts, and quicksilver, we each of us had our occupation, and were happy as the day was long. The quartz was sharp and cut like glass, so we wore deer-skin “trowserloons,” our beards grew, our muscles increased to an alarming extent, our manners were less toned down than was usual, in fact they were _swaggering_, our appetites were very large, but for all that we were so happy that even the pleasures of the “little valley” fell into insignificance before those of our Tuttletonian life; and this arose in a great measure from the fact that we all entertained a strong belief, that one day or other our labour would be rewarded.

Who talks of hope and disappointment in the same breath? Shall a day of the one efface or tarnish the recollection of a year’s happiness brightened by the other?--Not with me whilst I live. “See here, now, boys,” said a Tuttletonian miner, one day, as he held up to an admiring crowd a small and well-constructed lady’s boot. “The chunk aint found that can buy this boot; ’taint for sale, _no-how_!”

A lady’s boot to you, or I, reader, is not much unless we are married and have to pay for a pair occasionally; but so long as we can associate our hopes of earthly happiness for the future with some emblem held out to us even at arm’s length, as was the miner’s “lady’s boot,” we may go on our way to work as did his gratified spectators more cheerfully and light of heart.

When a man recals some sensation with more than ordinary pleasure, it is very usual for him, particularly if he is a writer of travels, to ask you if you have experienced the same. Says one “reader, did you ever witness a sun-set from Chimborazo?” Says the other “reader, did you ever eat a mangostein?” Unfortunately the reader is unable to reply until the description of these wonders has been perpetrated. I have alluded to this custom in excuse for asking the reader if he ever groomed his own horse and derived pleasure from it? If not, I recommend him after he has managed Chimborazo and the mangostein to try it. Mainspring’s coat was daily rubbed by me, when my own coat hung neglected on a peg; but the fact is, he was a very handsome horse, and in the mines such a rarity is a passport. With the natural vanity of man, I found that Mainspring attracted more attention than I did, so I allowed my beard to run to seed, and bestowed all my pains in beautifying the dumb animal.

You, madam, who have viewed with pleasure the envious glances that have been cast on the lovely bonnet you wore at Chiswick, will understand the emotions I felt when miners left their pits and claims to pronounce with less spleen upon the beauties of my steed.

The Old Soldier and Choctaw were seldom groomed; the mud in which, of course, they wallowed, was generally removed from their coats with a spade, and on grand occasions they were finished off with a broom. Rowe had a cream-coloured mare that was considered by the miners “some pumpkins,” an expression which indicates great merit, and is equally applied to a chew of tobacco, or the President of the United States.

We generally rode into Sonora of an evening, for we were always in want of something, and our drills and pickaxes, in particular, soon became blunted by the hard quartz, and had to be tempered again by the Sonora blacksmith. We would return by moonlight, and had always to pass through a camp of Mexicans of the worst character; these fellows not only cast their covetous glances on our horses in open daylight, but on more than one occasion they attempted at night to entrap us into a position that would have left us unable to defend either our lives or our beasts. They had a quantity of curs in their camp, and these, as we rode through in the moonlight, would rush out, being set upon us, and worry us on all sides with their yelping; they would follow us, howling, for some distance, and our natural impulse was to shoot them with our revolvers, for they were like wolves, but we were soon wise enough to refrain from discharging our fire-arms, for we should thus have left ourselves defenceless, against the half-dozen mounted ruffians we would encounter higher up the road, waiting, undoubtedly, for this result.

Two armed white men need fear little interruption from Mexicans provided a proper amount of caution is exercised, and no sign of trepidation is evinced. But their first principle is to attempt to throw you off your guard, therefore the best rule in meeting such men is to insist at once that they do not approach within the distance at which they can throw their deadly lasso, a weapon more formidable in the dark than fire-arms. Whenever, singly or with Rowe, I met a party of mounted Mexicans in the mines, I drew up on one side of the road until they passed, and after dusk I took the precaution of warning them to a respectful distance, nor was this unnecessary, for the Mexicans encamped round Tuttle Town committed many murders, and my horse alone was sufficient inducement for them, independent of the sums of money that the necessities of my party often required me to carry of a night.

One morning on entering the canvas stable that adjoined my hut, I discovered that Mainspring was gone; his halter had been cut, and there was no doubt that he had been stolen. Fortunately a drizzly rain was falling sufficient to moisten the ground, and this had probably set in about an hour after the thieves had removed the horse at the risk of their lives. Without some knowledge of Mexican cunning, it would have been useless to have attempted to track a stolen horse of Mainspring’s fleetness. We presumed at starting that he had been taken over the table mountain in our rear, as his foot prints could leave no trace behind for some miles in that direction.

Rowe and I then started on the search, and after crossing the mountain we halted at a gulch. With some trouble we discovered at last that the horse had crossed here, for he had one cutting shoe, the heel of which left a slight imprint; from the gulch we traced him to a tree, and here the ground being covered with dead leaves and brushwood, all sign was lost. Accident favoured us, for a few miles further on we again hit his trail at another gulch, but here he appeared to be returning. A close inspection, however, proved that his shoes had been turned, for the heel of the cutting shoe was on the wrong side, still we lost him again among the trees, and as evening advanced we began to despair. But soon we arrived at a Mexican encampment, and here by some stupid oversight on the part of the thieves, Mainspring’s rug was left lying exposed on the ground. All had protested their ignorance of the matter on our arrival, but now with the blanket staring them in the face, they soon produced the horse from a distant tent in the bushes, and assured us that a man had left it there that morning, and had gone on his way.

But a Mexican who was sleeping in a tent in mud-splashed clothes was the thief, I knew: he started when I roused him up suddenly and held the blanket before his eyes: but he swaggered out in apparent unconcern, and lighting a cigarito with admirable sang-froid, he began to play at cards with one of the others. I was too glad to recover Mainspring, to care about troubling myself by taking the Mexican back to Tuttle Town on suspicion, and I dare say he was not sorry when Rowe and I departed, for a horse thief in the mines has not much chance of his life when detected, and of this he is fully aware. It has ever puzzled me on reflection, that where so much pains had been taken to remove all trace of the horse, the glaring evidence of the theft should be left forgotten in open daylight, and I am inclined to think that the horse thieves considered themselves safe from pursuit, and were rather surprised at our appearance. From that day our horses were chained and padlocked every night.

The American residents of our mining village were very sociable and kind, and the good feeling they evinced towards us added materially to our comfort.

Englishmen and Americans are for the most part the victims of prejudice, and when they meet, too often each one expects to find in the other one who is prepared to depreciate and misunderstand him and his country. They approach each other like two strange dogs who stand head and tail, with bristling hairs, rubbing their ribs together with an angry scowl, for no reason on earth except that they are two dogs.

It may have been my fortune to have effaced some false impressions respecting my countrymen from American minds; but, at all events, I have had an opportunity of divesting myself of much prejudice by a social intercourse with them.

It is asserted that the Americans are great boasters, and I grant that retiring modesty is not the chief characteristic of the race; but it is right to remember, that for a long period, the Americans have been rather depreciated than otherwise, and unmerited depreciation will probably induce a habit of boasting more than anything else. When we tell our friend reprovingly not to blow his own trumpet, we presume that such merit as he possesses will be fully acknowledged. Public opinion has not until latterly dealt fairly with the Americans in all respects, and it is perhaps for this reason that they sound their own praises with stentorian lungs; if they have not been justified in doing so they have at least practically overturned that old saw of our revered ancestors, that “those who _talk_ most _do_ least.”

American character is necessarily very varied, and nowhere is this more clearly perceived than in California, where all classes, freed in a great measure from conventional restrictions, appear in their true garbs. I do not presume to write of American character, I can only record my experience of individuals as I have seen them in the shifting scenes of colonial life; but I think that I have had sufficient intercourse with Americans of all grades to warrant my asserting that foreign historians have too often unfairly paraded their faults, whilst their own writers have in many instances erred equally on the side of their virtues; I believe therefore that there is ample room on our bookshelves for one fair unprejudiced work on the people of the United States of America. Man is ordained to be charitable, and authors are not, that I am aware of, exempted from this command; if, therefore, in writing of a people, a little more pains were taken to discover their virtues, and a less wholesale principle was adopted in regard to the record of their vices, great good might be done to the nation written of and no harm that I know of would accrue to the author. The man who can kindle a warmer feeling in one nation towards another by displacing, with a little judicious reasoning, the prejudices that may affect the latter, waves a stronger wand than the most bitter satirist that ever lived and wrote.

Our vices are generally uppermost; this was exemplified in the “Old Soldier,” for your first acquaintance with that animal might possibly be cemented, as it were, by a kick in the ribs, or a bite on the shoulder; but, recovered from this shock, the longer you knew him the better you liked him; and the old fellow, when once satisfied that you were _his_ friend, would appear to you in a very different light than when under the influence of suspicion, justified, I’ll be bound, by the experience of his life, he attempted to do you a mischief.

I do not wish to compare this poor beast with a man, much less a nation, but the simile serves me so far as to illustrate the fallacy of first impressions as applied either to man or horse; yet, while all acknowledge this for a truism, we find that half the books of travels that analyse so fearlessly the character of the people visited are valueless as commentaries on them, either from hastiness or unfairness of opinion, on the one side, or laboriously-studied partiality on the other. But seldom does the work of an alien run into this latter fault, and most books on America remind me of a volume of Veterinary Surgery, of which, open what page you will, you are met with a description of a curb or a splint, a spavin or a ring-bone, with the author’s directions for a complete cure!

* * * * *

How small a trifle will disturb, at times, the even current of one’s life; let me recal the sole drawback to our otherwise complete contentment at Tuttle Town.

One of our neighbours had two pigs, and these, like all four-footed animals in the mines, had a roving commission, and lived by nocturnal plunder. This practice we could bear with, as much from our reverence for pork, as from the fact that it was a free country for man or pig. But these wretches took a fancy to scratching themselves, in the dead of night, against the canvas shanty that Rowe and I inhabited; there were plenty of posts, but they preferred a shanty; now, as the only hard substances they could find were our recumbent bodies, as we pressed against the canvas wall, the pigs scratched themselves against us, and as this occurred for about four hours every night, accompanied by the satisfactory grunts which the temporary alleviation of cutaneous disease elicits from the pig, our rest was continually being broken upon. We kept water boiling, and waking up suddenly we would scald them, we harpooned them with crowbars, damaged the vertebræ of their backs with the sharp edges of spades, fired blank cartridges under their noses, and scarified them with a deadly fire of broken bottles; but to no purpose, they would come back and rub us out of bed again regardless of any injury we could do them. The owner of them was absent, and there was no “pound,” honour forbade our shooting them, and we never could catch them to “corral” them. So, for the best part of a twelvemonth, we were nightly roused up by these intruders, who itched so badly that they rubbed our frail tenement out of the perpendicular. Soon they had a litter, and then, while they still rubbed, the little pigs would get under the house and squeal, and although we kept a long pole with a steel fork attached to it, with which we tried to “grain” them, as we do dolphins at sea, yet it was to no purpose, and they did as they liked with us up to the day we left. At first we used to set the dogs at them, but, being savage combatant pigs, rendered reckless by a free life, they would stand at bay with their sterns bulging against our tent, which they evidently mistook for the rock which was “to fly from its firm base as soon as they,” which it nearly did on one or two occasions; moreover, the dogs had enough to do to keep off six donkeys and about a dozen curs, who were generally very musical when the moon was up.

I mention this circumstance because we hear so much of the power of the human will, and I am satisfied that a pig’s will is stronger; and it is, moreover, not only a traveller’s duty to record a fact, but he is expected likewise to discover something new.