ned as myself, refused to move a step, but stood with his ears
flattened back, fore-legs extended, and protruded nostril, sniffing, in
a very paroxysm of fright.

I dismounted, and, fastening his head to his fore-leg, in Mexican
fashion, advanced on foot. Each step I made brought me nearer to the
sounds, which now I perceived were those of a fast-rolling river. A
horrid dread shot through my heart, my senses reeled as it struck me;
but with an effort I sprang forward, and there, deep below me, in a
boiling ocean of foam, rolled the river along the channel which we had
succeeded in damming up, on the mountain side, and in whose dry bed all
our labors had been followed. In an instant the whole truth revealed
itself before me: the stream, swollen by the rain falling in the distant
mountains, had overborne the barrier, and, descending with all its
force, had carried away village, mines, and every trace of the ill-fated
"Expedition." The very trees that grew along the banks were at first
undermined, and then swept away, and might be seen waving their great
branches above the flood, and then disappearing forever, like gigantic
figures struggling in the agony of drowning. The rude smelting-house,
built of heavy stones and masses of rock, had been carried down with
the rest. Trees whose huge size attested ages of growth reeled with the
shock that shook the earth beside them, and seemed to tremble at their
own coming destiny.

The inundation continued to increase at each instant, and more than once
the "yellowest" waves compelled me to retire. This it was which first
led me to despair of my poor comrades, since I inferred that the torrent
had burst its barrier only a short space before my arrival; and as the
sunset was the hour when all the gold discovered during the day was
washed, before being deposited in the smelting-house, I conjectured that
my companions were overtaken at that moment by the descending flood, and
that none had escaped destruction.

However the sad event took place, I never saw any of them after; and
although I tracked the stream for miles, and spent the entire of two
days in search of them, I did not discover one trace of the luckless
expedition. So changed had everything become--such a terrible alteration
had the scene undergone--that whenever I awoke from a sleep, short and
broken as my feverish thoughts would make it, it was with difficulty I
could believe that this was once the "Camp;" that where that