y.

"The report soon spread. Some of the gold was sent to San Francisco,
and crowds of people flocked to the diggings. Added to this, a large
emigrant party of Mormons entered California across the Rocky
Mountains, just as the affair was first made known. They halted at
once, and set to work on a spot some thirty miles from here, where a
few of them still remain. When I was last up at the diggings, there
were full eight hundred men at work, at one place and another, with
perhaps something like three hundred more passing backwards and
forwards between here and the mines. I at first imagined the gold
would soon be exhausted by such crowds of seekers, but subsequent
observations have convinced me that it will take many years to bring
about such a result, even with ten times the present number of people
employed.

"What surprises me," continued the Captain, "is that this country
should have been visited by so many scientific men, and that not one of
them should have ever stumbled upon these treasures; that scores of
keen-eyed trappers should have crossed this valley in every direction,
and tribes of Indians have dwelt in it for centuries, and yet that this
gold should have never been discovered. I myself have passed the very
spot above a hundred times during the last ten years, but was just as
blind as the rest of them, so I must not wonder at the discovery not
having been made earlier."

While the Captain was proceeding with his narrative, I must confess that
I felt so excited on the subject as to wish to start off immediately
on our journey. When he had finished, I walked off to see after the
horses, but, although they were ready, the additional shoes we wanted
to carry with us would not be furnished for several hours; it was late
in the afternoon before we got them. We bought two horses of Captain
Sutter (very strong animals), and McPhail managed to engage a big lad
as a servant--a rough-looking fellow, who appears to have deserted from
some ship, and worked his way up here. All things considered, it was
agreed that we should remain here another night, and resume our march
as early as we could in the morning.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Author and his friends leave Sutter's Fort
Tents in the bottom
A caravan in motion
Green hills and valleys
Indian villages
Californian pack-Horses
A sailor on horseback
Lunch at noon
A troublesome beast
Sierra Nevada
First view of the lower mines
How th