in the small and miserable tent in which W. had
languished away nearly half a year, and he was removed to the Empire
the day previous to the amputation. It is almost needless to tell you
that the little fortune, to accumulate which he suffered so much, is
now nearly exhausted. Poor fellow! the philosophy and cheerful
resignation with which he has endured his terrible martyrdom is
beautiful to behold. My heart aches as I look upon his young face and
think of "his gentle dark-eyed mother weeping lonely at the North" for
her far-away and suffering son.

As I sat by the bedside of our poor invalid, yielding myself up to a
world of dreamy visionings suggested by the musical sweep of the pine
branch which I waved above his head, and the rosy sunset flushing the
western casement with its soft glory, he suddenly opened his languid
eyes and whispered, "The Chileno procession is returning. Do you not
hear it?" I did not tell him--

That the weary sound, and the heavy breath,
And the silent motions of passing death,
And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank,
Sent through the pores of the coffin-plank,

had already informed me that a far other band than that of the noisy
South Americans was solemnly marching by. It was the funeral train of a
young man who was instantly killed, the evening before, by falling into
one of those deep pits, sunk for mining purposes, which are scattered
over the Bar in almost every direction. I rose quietly and looked from
the window. About a dozen persons were carrying an unpainted coffin,
without pall or bier (the place of the latter being supplied by ropes),
up the steep hill which rises behind the Empire, on the top of which is
situated the burial-ground of Rich Bar. The bearers were all neatly and
cleanly dressed in their miner's costume, which, consisting of a
flannel shirt (almost always of a dark-blue color), pantaloons with the
boots drawn up over them, and a low-crowned broad-brimmed black felt
hat (though the fashion of the latter is not invariable), is not,
simple as it seems, so unpicturesque as you might perhaps imagine. A
strange horror of that lonely mountain graveyard came over me as I
watched the little company wending wearily up to the solitary spot. The
"sweet habitude of being"--not that I fear _death_, but that I love
_life_ as, for instance, Charles Lamb loved it--makes me particularly
affect a cheerful burial-place. I know that it is dreadfully
unsentimental,