l
preparations of whole mink, otter, and sable skins, which I have seen in
Indian hands anywhere on the continent. One of the men had a great cap
made out of an entire grizzly cub-skin, the claws very nicely preserved
and dangling behind, while the head curved forward on top like the crest
of an old Greek helmet. Nowhere did we find neater, more ornamental
berry-baskets, or more carefully worked dishes and basins, than those
woven or scooped and stained by this tribe. In wandering through their
stick-and-bark lodges we found some tolerably good-looking men, far
above the average brutality of the Diggers, with simple, pleasant
expressions, and not afraid to look one in the eye. In one lodge
crouched a man and woman who without exception were the oldest-looking
people I ever saw. The husband was blind, the wife palsied; but they had
been left in charge of a sprawling family of their fifth generation,
which haste and the warm weather forbade our counting. I gave the old
lady a plug of tobacco, and watched, as she put it up against her
husband's face, to see which of the wrinkles was his mouth; while, on
her filling a pipe and smoking with grunts of evident approbation
directed to myself, I felt pleasant and Biblical, as if I had been doing
a good turn to Methuselah's aunt.

Only forty miles more stretched between us and Shasta Peak. We had now
reached an elevation where it was visible to us in its full majesty from
the southwestern side. All day, after our leaving Dog Creek, its giant
cone, snow-wrapt half-way to the base, kept surprising us through clefts
in the surrounding crags at the end of long wooded vistas, or on some
clear, treeless height to which we had climbed, forgetting the mountain
in our heat and labor. The country about us was becoming wilder and
wilder: our road was sometimes a mere trail, half obliterated by springs
or traversing rivulets. We now rode in the woods most of the time, and
found the shadow, stillness, and fragrance all delicious. Beside all the
springs we discovered the southernwood of our Eastern gardens growing
wild, its strawberry-scented and maroon-colored buds much larger than
those of our variety, and, though a trifle less intense in their
perfume, still sufficiently sweet to make every nook in which they grew
delicious for yards around. Here and there the woods showed some
symptoms of autumnal change; there were hectic spots now and then on the
maple-leaves; but nothing approaching in