, 1852.

Since I last wrote you, dear M., I have spent three weeks in the
American Valley, and I returned therefrom humbled to the very dust when
thinking of my former vainglorious boast of having "seen the elephant."
To be sure, if having fathomed to its very depths the power of mere
existence, without any reference to those conventional aids which
civilization has the folly to think necessary to the performance of
that agreeable duty, was any criterion, I certainly fancied that I had
a right to brag of having taken a full view of that most piquant
specimen of the brute creation, the California "elephant." But it seems
that I was mistaken, and that we miners have been dwelling in perfect
palaces, surrounded by furniture of the most gorgeous description, and
reveling in every possible luxury. Well, one lives and learns, even on
the borders of civilization. But to begin at the beginning, let me tell
you the history of my dreadful pleasure-tour to the American Valley.

You must know that a convention had been appointed to meet at that
place for the purpose of nominating representatives for the coming
election. As F. had the misfortune to be one of the delegates, nothing
would do but I must accompany him; for, as my health had really
suffered through the excitements of the summer, he fancied that change
of air might do me good. Mrs. ----, one of our new ladies, had been
invited to spend a few weeks in the same place, at the residence of a
friend of her husband, who was living there with his family. As Mr.
---- was also one of the delegates, we made up a party together, and,
being joined by two or three other gentlemen, formed quite a gay
cavalcade.

The day was beautiful. But when is it ever otherwise in the mountains
of California? We left the Bar by another ascent than the one from
which I entered the Bar, and it was so infinitely less steep than the
latter, that it seemed a mere nothing. You, however, would have fancied
it quite a respectably hill, and Mr. ---- said that so fearful did it
seem to him the first time he went down it, that he vowed never to
cross it but once more,--a vow, by the way, which has been broken many
times. The whole road was a succession of charming tableaux, in which
sparkling streamlets, tiny waterfalls, frisky squirrels gleaming amid
the foliage like a flash of red light, quails with their pretty gray
plumage flecked with ivory, dandy jays, great awkward black crows, pert
little lizards,