ease his expenses
paid. Had a rest from hard work. Tendered a present and a handsome
apology. Public opinion in the mines a cruel but fortunately a fickle
thing. Invitation to author to breakfast at Spanish garden. The journey
thereto, along river, with its busy mining scenes. The wing-dam, and
how it differs from the ordinary dam. An involuntary bath. Drifts,
shafts, coyote-holes. How claims are worked. Flumes. Unskilled workmen.
Their former professions or occupations. The best water in California,
but the author is unappreciative. Flavorless, but, since the Flood,
always tastes of sinners. Don Juan's country-seat. The Spanish
breakfast. The eatables and the drinkables. Stronger spirits for the
stronger spirits. Ice, through oversight, the only thing lacking.
Yank's tame cub. Parodic doggerel by the author on her loss of pets. A
miners' dinner-party with but one teaspoon, and that one borrowed. An
unlearned and wearisome blacksmith.

Letter _the_ Twentieth

MURDER--MINING SCENES--SPANISH BREAKFAST

_From our Log Cabin_, INDIAN BAR,

_September_ 4, 1852.

If I could coax some good-natured fairy or some mischievous Puck to
borrow for me the pen of Grace Greenwood, Fanny Forester, or Nathaniel
P. Willis, I might be able to weave my stupid nothings into one of
those airy fabrics the value of which depends entirely upon the
skillful work, or rather penmanship, which distinguishes it. I have
even fancied that if I could steal a feather from the living opal
swinging like a jeweled pendulum from the heart of the great tiger-lily
which nods its turbaned head so stately within the mosquito-net cage
standing upon the little table, my poor lines would gather a certain
beauty from the rainbow-tinted quill with which I might trace them. But
as there is nobody magician enough to go out and shoot a fairy or a
brownie and bind it by sign and spell to do my bidding, and as I have
strong doubts whether my coarse fingers would be able to manage the
delicate pen of a humming-bird even if I could have the heart to rob my
only remaining pet of its brilliant feathers, I am fain to be content
with one of "Gillott's Best,"--no, of "C. R. Sheton's Extra Fine,"
although I am certain that the sentences following its hard stroke will
be as stiff as itself. If they were only as bright, one might put up
with the want of grace, but to be stiff and stupid both, is _too_
provoking, is it not, dear M.? However, what must be, must be; and a