for it here; but in a ravine, seven miles distant, a little girl this morning picked up what she thought a curious stone, and brought it to her mother, who, on removing the extraneous matter, found it a lump of pure gold, weighing between six and seven pounds. The news of this discovery silenced all the picks here for half an hour, and set as many tongues going in their places. Twenty or thirty started at once to explore the wonders of this new locality. Gold among hunters, like a magnet in the midst of ferruginous bodies, attracts every thing to itself.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 18. We are camped in the centre of the gold mines, in the heart of the richest deposits which have been found, and where there are many hundred at work. I have taken some pains to ascertain the average per man that is got out; it must be less than half an ounce per day. It might be more were there any stability among the diggers; but half their time is consumed in what they call prospecting; that is, looking up new deposits. An idle rumor, or mere surmise, will carry them off in this direction or that, when perhaps they gathered nothing for their weariness and toil. A locality where an ounce a day can be obtained by patient labor is constantly left for another, which rumor has enriched with more generous deposits. They who decry this instability in others, may hold out for a time, but yield at last to the same phrensied fickleness. I have never met with one who had the strength of purpose

to resist these roving temptations. He will not swing a pick for an ounce a day, with the rumor of pounds ringing in his ears. He shoulders his implements to chase this phantom of hope.

THURSDAY, OCT. 19. All the gold-diggers through the entire encampment, were shaken out of their slumbers this morning by a report that a solid pocket of gold had been discovered in a bend of the Stanislaus. In half an hour a motley multitude, covered with crowbars, pickaxes, spades, rifles, and washbowls, went streaming over the hills in the direction of the new deposits. You would have thought some fortress was to be stormed, or some citadel sapped. I had seen too much of these rumored banks of gold to be moved from my propriety, and remained under my old camping-tree. Near this I pecked out from a small crevice of slate rock, a piece weighing about half an ounce. It had evidently travelled some distance, and taken refuge from the propulsive storms of ages in this little hiding-place, as a good man from the persecutions of the world glides down at last to his sainted repose. But I have no compunction for having disturbed this piece of gold; it may yet be shaped into an ear-drop, and kiss the envied cheek of beauty; or it may be studded with diamonds, and swell on a billow that seems to blush at the flash of its ray; or it may be shaped into the marriage-ring, and set its seal on the purest bliss that greets the visits of angels; or it may be stamped into a coin,

and as it drops into the hands of the widow or orrhan, prove that

"The secret pleasure of a generous act

Is the great mind's great bribe."

But evening is returning, and with it the gold-diggers from their pursuit of the new deposit. Their jokes, as they clatter down the slopes of the ravine, are sufficient evidence that they have been on a wildgoose chase. Disappointment will make a single man sober, but when it falls on a multitude, is often converted into a source of railery and fun. There is something extremely consoling in having the company of others, when we have been duped through our vanity or exaggerated hopes. This comfort was deeply felt by the diggers this evening. Ali had lost a day, and with it the most enchanting visions of wealth. All had returned hungry as a wolf on a desert; or a recluse listening in his last penance to the sound of his cross-bones, shaken by the wind.

CHAPTER XXII.

VISIT TO THE SONORANIAN CAMP.-FESTIVITIES AND GAMBLING. THE DOCTOR AND TEAMSTER.-AN ALCALDE TURNED COOK.-THE MINER'S TATTOO. -THE LITTLE DUTCHMAN.-NEW DEPOSITS DISCOVERED.-A WOMAN KEEPING A MONTÉ TABLE.-UP TO THE KNEE AND NINE-PENCE. THE VOLCANOES AND GOLD.-ARRIVAL OF A BARREL OF RUM.

FRIDAY, OCT. 20. I threw myself into my saddle at an early hour this morning, and started for a cañada, about ten miles distant. The foot-trail which I followed, lay over several sharp ridges to the quick waves of the Stanislaus, and then up a steep mountain spur. I was obliged to dismount, draw myself up by the bushes, and trust to the fidelity of my horse to follow. At last we gained the summit, but it was only to gaze down a wild precipitous descent, where the cliffs hung in toppling terror. A vein of white quartz run along the ridge, like a line of unmelted snow, with here and there spangles of gold glittering in the sun. I had no implement with me. but my hunting-knife, and vainly broke the point of that. I tried one of my pistols; the bullet knocked out the gold-drop, but jewel and lead went over the steep verge together. I let myself down by the bushes, blessing every lythe limb and steadfast root, while my horse, more sagacious, fetched a circuit, and reached the plain before me.

Ascending another ridge, the ravine, which had induced this adventure, lay in jagged wildness beneath. It was in uproarious life; an elk had been shot; and the miners were feasting on its fat ribs. The repast was hardly over, when the monté table, with its piles of gold, glimmered in the shade. It was the great camp of the Sonoranians, and hundreds were crowding around to reach the bank, and deposit their treasures on the turn of a card. They seemed to play for the excitement, and often doubled their stakes whether they won or lost. They apparently connect no moral obliquity with the game; one of them, who sleeps near my camping-tree, will kneel by the half hour on the sharp rock in his Ave Marias, while the keen night-wind cuts his scarce clad frame, then rise and stake his last dollar at monté. At the break of day he is on his knees again, and his prayer trembles up with the first trill of the waking birds. It was in this ravine that a few weeks since the largest lump of gold found in California was discovered. It weighs twenty-three pounds, is nearly pure, and cubic in its form. Its discovery shook the whole mines; the shout of the eureka swelled on the wind like the cheer of seamen when the pharos breaks through a stormy night. I waved my adieu to the miners, and fetching a bold circuit to the east, reached at night-fall my camping-tree.

SATURDAY, OCT. 21. Extravagant charges here are often made as offsets. A doctor of my acquaintance,