y toss'd the forest like a toy,
That grand forgotten race of men--
The boldest band that yet has been
Together since the Siege of Troy.

Some carried packs on their backs, with pick and shovel, drill and
pan. Others rode, leading their burden-bearing burros or mules. Wagon
after wagon creaked along, laden to the full with supplies, food, or
machinery.

As we push along and come to the river, Joaquin Miller's words make
the memory pictures for us:

I look along each gaping gorge,
I hear a thousand sounding strokes
Like giants rending giant oaks,
Or brawny Vulcan at his forge;
I see pickaxes flash and shine;
Hear great wheels whirling in a mine.
Here winds a thick and yellow thread,
A moss'd and silver stream instead;
And trout that leap'd its riffled tide
Have turn'd upon their sides and died.

Below Camino we pass near to Pino Grande, where the great cable
railway carries loaded cars of logs across the deep canyon of the
American River.

Rapidly we reach Smith's Flat, 4 miles, a famous mining-camp in the
days gone by, but now consisting of a general store, a few houses, and
a gnarled old log fashioned into a glorious water-trough fit for the
Vikings.

Three more miles and Placerville is reached, the quaint old reminder
of "the days of '49, the days of old, the days of gold," when men
flocked to California from all parts of the earth eager with the lust
for gold. In those memorable days it was called "Hangtown," a name
some of its present-day citizens would fain forget, oblivious, in
their own small-mindedness that they are neither responsible for its
history nor its nomenclature.

Built primarily in the somewhat shut-in walls of a small canyon, it
winds and curves around in a happy-go-lucky fashion, and when the
canyon widens out, spills over into irregular streets and up and down
hills that were once clad with pines, firs, spruces and junipers. That
wealth and prosperity have smiled upon it in late years is evidenced
by its comfortable lawn-girdled homes, its thriving orchards, its
active business streets, and its truly beautiful, because simple,
chaste and dignified, county court-house.

_Placerville to Sacramento, 47 Miles_. This is a well-known road,
via Diamond Springs, 2-1/2 miles; El Dorado, 6 miles; Shingle Springs,
11 miles, and Folsom, 25 miles.

The elevation at Tallac is 6225 feet; at Echo, 7500 feet; Strawberry,
5700 feet; Kyburgs, 4000 feet; Riverton, 3300 feet; Pacific House,
34