of my morning's
work on safer and more scientific principles.

At dinner-time some good-natured friend carves the beef at a stove
outside, on condition that he may have a plate and knife and fork at
our table. So when that meal is ready I spread on the said table, which
at other times does duty as a china-closet, a quarter of a sheet,
which, with its three companion quarters, was sanctified and set apart,
when I first arrived here, for that sacred purpose. As our guests
generally amount to six or eight, we dispense the three teaspoons at
the rate of one to every two or three persons. All sorts of outlandish
dishes serve as teacups. Among others, wine-glasses and tumblers--there
are always plenty of these in the mines--figure largely. Last night,
our company being larger than usual, one of our friends was compelled
to take his tea out of a soup-plate. The same individual, not being
able to find a seat, went outside and brought in an empty gin-cask,
upon which he sat, sipping iron tablespoonfuls of his tea, in great
apparent glory and contentment.

F. has just entered, with the joyful news that the expressman has
arrived. He says that it will be impossible for mule trains to get in
for some time to come, even if the storm is really over, which he does
not believe. In many places on the mountains the snow is already five
feet in depth, although he thinks that, so many people are constantly
leaving for the valley, the path will be kept open, so that I can make
the journey with comparative ease on his horse, which he has kindly
offered to lend me, volunteering to accompany F., and some others who
will make their exodus at the same time, on foot. Of course I shall be
obliged to leave my trunks, merely taking a change of linen in a carpet
bag. We shall leave to-morrow, whether it rain or snow, for it would be
madness to linger any longer.

My heart is heavy at the thought of departing forever from this place.
I _like_ this wild and barbarous life. I leave it with regret. The
solemn fir-trees, whose "slender tops _are_ close against the sky"
here, the watching hills, and the calmly beautiful river, seem to gaze
sorrowfully at me as I stand in the moonlighted midnight to bid them
farewell. Beloved, unconventional wood-life; divine Nature, into whose
benign eyes I never looked, whose many voices, gay and glad, I never
heard, in the artificial heart of the busy world,--I quit your serene
teachings for a restless and troubled f