FACES PAGE 334

This beautiful engraving follows closely that in de Saint-Amant's
Voyages. (See note to plate 2, ante.) Here the miners found it more
economical to purchase water from a fluming company than to pump it
from the river. The belt and pulley is used to drive a Chinese pump
which keeps dry the pit now being worked.

_The_ Shirley Letters

Letter _the_ First

Part One

_The_ JOURNEY _to_ RICH BAR

RICH BAR, EAST BRANCH _of the_ NORTH FORK _of_ FEATHER RIVER,

_September_ 13, 1851.

I can easily imagine, dear M., the look of large wonder which gleams
from your astonished eyes when they fall upon the date of this letter.
I can figure to myself your whole surprised attitude as you exclaim,
"What, in the name of all that is restless, has sent 'Dame Shirley' to
Rich Bar? How did such a shivering, frail, home-loving little thistle
ever float safely to that far-away spot, and take root so kindly, as it
evidently has, in that barbarous soil? Where, in this living, breathing
world of ours, lieth that same Rich Bar, which, sooth to say, hath a
most taking name? And, for pity's sake, how does the poor little fool
expect to amuse herself there?"

Patience, sister of mine. Your curiosity is truly laudable, and I trust
that before you read the postscript of this epistle it will be fully
and completely relieved. And, first, I will merely observe, _en
passant_, reserving a full description of its discovery for a future
letter, that said Bar forms a part of a mining settlement situated on
the East Branch of the North Fork of Feather River, "away off up in the
mountains," as our "little Faresoul" would say, at almost the highest
point where, as yet, gold has been discovered, and indeed within fifty
miles of the summit of the Sierra Nevada itself. So much, at present,
for our _local_, while I proceed to tell you of the propitious--or
unpropitious, as the result will prove--winds which blew us hitherward.

You already know that F., after suffering for an entire year with fever
and ague, and bilious, remittent, and intermittent fevers,--this
delightful list varied by an occasional attack of jaundice,--was
advised, as a _dernier ressort_, to go into the mountains. A friend,
who had just returned from the place, suggested Rich Bar as the
terminus of his health-seeking journey, not only on account of the
extreme purity of the atmosphere, but because there were more than a
thousand people