pants
being treated with contempt or pity. Building sold for a few hundred
dollars. The new landlord of the Empire. The landlady, an example of
the terrible wear and tear to the complexion in crossing the plains. A
resolute woman. Left behind her two children and an eight-months-old
baby. Cooking for six people, her two-weeks-old baby kicking and
screaming in champagne-basket cradle. "The sublime martyrdom of
maternity". Left alone immediately after infant's birth. Husband
dangerously ill, and cannot help. A kindly miner. Three other women at
the Bar. The "Indiana girl". "Girl" a misnomer. "A gigantic piece of
humanity". "Dainty" habits and herculean feats. A log-cabin family.
Pretty and interesting children. "The Miners' Home". Its petite
landlady tends bar. "Splendid material for social parties this winter."

Letter _the_ Second

RICH BAR--ITS HOTELS _and_ PIONEER FAMILIES

RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,

_September_ 15, 1851.

I believe that I closed my last letter by informing you that I was
safely ensconced--after all the hair-breadth escapes of my wearisome,
though at the same time delightful, journey--under the magnificent roof
of the "Empire," which, by the way, is _the_ hotel of the place, not
but that nearly ever other shanty on the Bar claims the same
grandiloquent title. Indeed, for that matter, California herself might
be called the Hotel State, so completely is she inundated with taverns,
boarding-houses, etc. The Empire is the only two-story building in
town, and absolutely has a live "upstairs." Here you will find two or
three glass windows, an unknown luxury in all the other dwellings. It
is built of planks of the roughest possible description. The roof, of
course, is covered with canvas, which also forms the entire front of
the house, on which is painted, in immense capitals, the following
imposing letters: "THE EMPIRE!" I will describe, as exactly as
possible, this grand establishment. You first enter a large apartment,
level with the street, part of which is fitted up as a barroom, with
that eternal crimson calico which flushes the whole social life of the
Golden State with its everlasting red, in the center of a fluted mass
of which gleams a really elegant mirror, set off by a background of
decanters, cigar-vases, and jars of brandied fruit; the whole forming a
_tout ensemble_ of dazzling splendor. A table covered with a green
cloth,--upon which lies a pa