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s we could not afford to lose the animals, José and Horry were despatched lo look after them, and they grumbled not a little at being thus sent off from the scene
protection and defence. Leaving Don Luis, then, smoking in the tent, we proceeded to work, and found that the great majority of the gold-finders appeared to entertain our opinions, or at all events to imitate our practice, as to labouring on the Sunday. I had now leisure more particularly to remark the nature of the soil in which the gold was found. The dust is found amid the shingle actually below water
, upon the spinal column, whilst the constant immersion of the hands in water causes the skin to excoriate and become exce
therefore, to resort to some of our jerked beef, which, with biscuits and coffee, formed our fare. After dinner, we determined to rest until the next day. The fact is, that the human frame will not stand, and was never intended
ons. Others sat smoking and chatting in circles upon the grass, mending their clothes or performing other little domestic duties at the same time. It was really a motley scene. Indians strutted by in all the pride of gaudy calico, the manners of the savage concealed beneath the dress of the civilized man. Muscular sun-burnt fellows, whose fine forms and swarthy faces pronounced that Spanish blood ran through their veins, gossiped away with sallow hatchet-faced Yankees, smart men at a bargain, and always on the lookout for squalls. Here, and there one spied out the flannel shirt and coarse canvas trousers of a seaman-a runaway, in all probability, from a South Sea whaler; while one or two stray negroes chattered with all the volubility of their race, shaking their woolly heads and showing their wh
as a chapel. A missionary, from one of the New England States, as I hear, was holding forth to a pretty large congregation. The place was very hot anort of dinner one has had to-day. The beef doesn't look roasted as they would put it on the table at the Clarendon, or at Astor House even; but none of those who s