. I am generally found
seated on a cigar-box in the chimney-corner, my chin in my hand,
rocking backwards and forwards (weaving, you used to call it) in a
despairing way, and now and then casting a picturesquely hopeless
glance about our dilapidated cabin. Such a looking place as it is! Not
having been repaired, the rain, pouring down the outside of the
chimney, which is inside of the house, has liquefied the mud, which now
lies in spots all over the splendid tin mantelpiece, and festoons
itself in graceful arabesques along the sides thereof. The lining
overhead is dreadfully stained, the rose-garlanded hangings are faded
and torn, the sofa-covering displays picturesque glimpses of hay, and
the poor, old, worn-out carpet is not enough to make india-rubbers
desirable.

Sometimes I lounge forlornly to the window and try to take a bird's-eye
view of outdoors. First, now a large pile of gravel prevents my seeing
anything else, but by dint of standing on tiptoe I catch sight of a
hundred other large piles of gravel, Pelion-upon-Ossa-like heaps of
gigantic stones, excavations of fearful deepness, innumerable tents,
calico hovels, shingle palaces, ramadas (pretty arbor-like places,
composed of green boughs, and baptized with that sweet name), half a
dozen blue and red shirted miners, and one hatless hombre, in garments
of the airiest description, reclining gracefully at the entrance of the
Humboldt in that transcendental state of intoxication when a man is
compelled to hold on to the earth for fear of falling off. The whole
Bar is thickly peppered with empty bottles, oyster-cans, sardine-boxes,
and brandied-fruit jars, the harsher outlines of which are softened off
by the thinnest possible coating of radiant snow. The river, freed from
its wooden-flume prison, rolls gracefully by. The green and purple
beauty of these majestic old mountains looks lovelier than ever,
through its pearl-like network of foaming streamlets, while, like an
immense concave of pure sapphire without spot or speck, the wonderful
and never-enough-to-be-talked-about sky of California drops down upon
the whole its fathomless splendor. The day happens to be the inner fold
of one of the atmospheric sandwiches alluded to above. Had it been
otherwise, I doubt whether I should have had spirit enough to write to
you.

I have just been called from my letter to look at a wonderfully curious
gold specimen. I will try to describe it to you; and to convince you
tha