march by his extreme awkwardness on horseback. However, to do him
justice, he bore the numerous falls which he came in for with great
philosophy, starting up again every time he was "grassed," and laughing
as loudly as the rest.

At noon we halted to refresh by the side of a small stream of crystal
purity. While making preparations for our hurried meal, we had all our
eyes about us for gold in the channel of the rivulet, but saw none. We
had not yet reached the favoured spot. After some difficulty in
catching the pack-horses, one of the perverse brutes having taken it
into its head to march up to its belly in the stream, where he
floundered about for some time, enjoying the coolness of the water, we
set forward, determined to reach the lower diggings by sundown. As we
neared the spot the ground gradually became more broken and heavily
timbered with oak and pine, while in the distance, and separated from
us by deep forests of these trees, might be seen a long ridge of
snow-capped mountains--the lofty Sierra Nevada. But we were too anxious
to reach the gold to care much about the more unprofitable beauties of
Nature, and accordingly urged our horses to the quickest speed they
could put forth. We were now travelling along the river's banks, and
towards evening came in sight of the lower mines, here called the
"Mormon" diggings, which occupy a surface of two or three miles along
the river. There were something like forty tents scattered up the hill
sides, occupied mostly by Americans, some of whom had brought their
families with them. Although it was near sundown, everybody was in full
occupation. At every few yards there were men, with their naked arms,
busily employed in washing out the golden flakes and dust from
spadefuls of the auriferous soil. Others were first passing it through
sieves, many of them freshly made with intertwisted willow branches, to
get rid of the coarse stones, and then washing the lumps of soil in