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was being prepared, the men of each company were busily engaged in saddling their horses and arranging their baggage; several wagons and teams were already in motion, following the road along th

anaged tolerably well with our horses, but it requires great experience to be able to fasten securely the loads of provisions and stores which they carry on their backs. Flour, of course, formed the principal article of our commissariat. This was packed up in sacks, which were again enclosed in long pockets, made of hides, and called "parfleshes," the use of which is to defend the canvas of the sacking from being torn by branches of fern and underwood. The sacks we secured on strong pack-saddles, between which and the back of the horse were some thick soft cloths. All our baggage-horses were furnished with trail ropes, which were allowed to drag on the ground after the horse, for the purpos

and pine, while in the distance, and separated from us by deep forests of these trees, might be seen a long ridge of snow-capped mountains-the lofty Sierra Nevada. But we were too anxious to reach the gold to care much about the more unprofitable beauties of Nature, and accordingly urged our horses to the quickest speed they could put forth. We were now travelling along the river's banks, and towards evening came in sight of the lower mines, here called the "Mormon" diggings, which occupy a surface of two or three miles along the river. There were something like forty tents scattered up the hill sides, occupied mostly by Amer

at it. The first shovelled up the earth; another carried it to the cradle, and dashed it down on a grating or sieve-placed horizontally at the head of the machine-the wires of which, being close together, only allowed the smaller particles of earth and sand to fall through; the third man rocked the cradle-I must confess I never saw one so perseveringly rocked at h

common good. The gold-finders told us that some of them frequently got as much as fifty dollars a-day. As we rode from camp to camp, and saw the hoards of gold-some of it in flakes, but the greater part in a coarse sort of dust-which these people had amassed d

canvas tents, mingled with the more sombre-looking huts, constructed with once green but now withered branches. A few hundred yards from the river lay a large heap of planks and frami

t into the bed of the rivulet, at a spot where I perceived no trace of the gravel and earth having been artificially disturbed. Near me was a small clear pool, which served for washing the gold. Some of our party set to work within a short distance of me, while others tried their fortune along the banks of the Americanos, digging up the shingle which lay at the very brink of the stream. I shall not soon forget the feeling with which I first plunged my scoop into the soil beneath me. Half filling my tin pail with the earth and shingle, I carried it to the pool, and placing it beneath the surface of the water, I began to stir it with my hand, as I had observed t

y of the precious black sand; it remained, however, to be seen what proportion of gold our heaps contained. In a short time Bradley and Don Luis joined us, both of them in tip-top spirits. "I guess this is the way we do the trick down in these clearings," said the f

Bradley was clumsy enough to burn a hole in our very best saucepan. However, we managed to get the moisture absorbed, and, shutting our eyes, we commenced blowing away the sand with our mouths, and shortly after found ourselves the possessors of a few pinch's of gold. This was enc