ying a portion of its deserted bed. If my
definition is unsatisfactory, I can but refer you to some of the
aforesaid works upon California.

Through the middle of Rich Bar runs the street, thickly planted with
about forty tenements, among which figure round tents, square tents,
plank hovels, log cabins, etc., the residences varying in elegance and
convenience from the palatial splendor of "The Empire" down to a "local
habitation" formed of pine boughs and covered with old calico shirts.

To-day I visited the "office," the only one on the river. I had heard
so much about it from others, as well as from F., that I really _did_
expect something extra. When I entered this imposing place the shock to
my optic nerves was so great that I sank helplessly upon one of the
benches, which ran, divan-like, the whole length (ten feet!) of the
building, and laughed till I cried. There was, of course, no floor. A
rude nondescript, in one corner, on which was ranged the medical
library, consisting of half a dozen volumes, did duty as a table. The
shelves, which looked like sticks snatched hastily from the woodpile,
and nailed up without the least alteration, contained quite a
respectable array of medicines. The white-canvas window stared
everybody in the face, with the interesting information painted on it,
in perfect grenadiers of capitals, that this was Dr. ----'s office.

At my loud laugh (which, it must be confessed, was noisy enough to give
the whole street assurance of the presence of a woman) F. looked
shocked, and his partner looked prussic acid. To him (the partner, I
mean; he hadn't been out of the mines for years) the "office" was a
thing sacred, and set apart for an almost admiring worship. It was a
beautiful architectural ideal embodied in pine shingles and cotton
cloth. Here he literally "lived, and moved, and had his being," his bed
and his board. With an admiration of the fine arts truly praiseworthy,
he had fondly decorated the walls thereof with sundry pictures from
Godey's, Graham's, and Sartain's magazines, among which, fashion-plates
with imaginary monsters sporting miraculous waists, impossible wrists,
and fabulous feet, largely predominated.

During my call at the office I was introduced to one of the _finders_
of Rich Bar,--a young Georgian,--who afterwards gave me a full
description of all the facts connected with its discovery. This
unfortunate had not spoken to a woman for two years, and, in the
elation of