ASSAULT OF PUEBLO DE TAOS.

461

commanding the road to Canada. They saw that the train of Colonel Price's command was some distance in the rear, and attempted to cut it off. In this they were foiled, and the battle was regularly commenced. In a few minutes they were dislodged from every one of their positions, and flying in all directions. Colonel Price lost two killed and six wounded. The enemy left thirty-six dead on the field, and carried off their wounded. The enemy retreated so rapidly that they could not be overtaken. On the 29th of January, Colonel Price learned that some sixty or eighty of them were posted on the gorge leading to Embudo, and he despatched Captain Burgwin, witn one hundred and eighty men, to fight them. The road to be travelled would not admit of the passage of artillery or baggage wagons.

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APTAIN BURGWIN found them six hun

dred strong, posted on the precipitous sides of the mountains, where the gorge would only admit the passage of three men abreast. There could scarcely be a better position for defence than that they held, yet Captain Burgwin drove them from it, with the loss, on their part, of twenty killed and sixty wounded. He had only one man killed and one wounded. He marched through the pass and entered Embudo. From thence he marched to Trampas, where he met Colo nel Price, and the whole army marched over the Taos mountain, breaking a road through the snow which covered it for their artillery. The enemy were found to have fortified Pueblo de Taos, a place of great strength, surrounded by adobe walls and strong pickets, every part of which were flanked by some projecting building. He opened his batteries on the town on the 3d of February, but in a little time retired to await the concentration of his forces. On the 4th, at nine o'clock in the morning, the fire was again opened, and at eleven, finding it was impossible to make a breach in the walls with the howitzers, the colonel determined to storm the church, which was in the north-western angle of the town. Captain Burgwin led the attack. His party established themselves under the western wall of the church, and attempted to breach it with axes, while the roof was fired by the help of a temporary ladder. In this emergency, the gallant commander exposed himself fatally to the enemy. Captain Burgwin left the shelter afforded by the flank of the church, and penetrating into the corral in front of that building, endeavoured to force the door.

URGWIN, in this daring effort, received a wound which caused his death on the 7th February. Several other officers hac accompanied him to the church door, but they were not able to force it, and therefore retired behind the wall; while they nad been thus engaged, some small holes had been cut in the wall, and shells were thrown in by hand, doing good execution. A six-pounder was now brought around by Lieutenant Wilson, who poured a heavy fire of grape into the town from the distance of six hundred yards. The enemy had maintained a steady and heavy fire upon our troops during the whole fight. At half past three, ten rounds of grape were fired within sixty yards, into the holes that had been cut in the church wall with the axes, and a practicable breach was thus made. The gun was then run up to ten yards' distance, a shell was fired, and three more rounds of grape followed. Lieutenants Dyer, Wilson, and Taylor then entered and took possession of the church, feeling for the foe in the smoke which filled it. The capture of the town was then speedily effected. Many of the enemy endeavoured to escape towards the mountains, but were intercepted by Captains Slack and St. Vrain, who killed fifty-one of them. They then sued for peace, and to obtain it gave up towns, the Indians who had been concerned in the murder of Governor Bent, and much of the property of the murdered Americans. The people of Moro, a town on the east side of the mountains, had risen on the 19th of January, and massacred eight Americans residing there. Captain Henley being near the town at the time, attempted to take it, but was repulsed with the loss of his life. Captain Morin reinforced the assailants, and took and burned the town. The Indians begged for peace, giving up those who had excited them to hostilities. The active participants in the rebellion were tried, and many who were convicted and condemned were promptly executed. For his zeal and gallantry in these movements, Colonel Price was rewarded by promotion to the rank of brigadier-general.

The Camanche, Anapaho, and Kiawa tribes of Indians, with others inhabiting the country from Missouri to Sante Fe and California, kept up such a series of hostilities and outrages, that it was found necessary to send a battalion of troops thither, under Colonel Gilpin. That energetic officer speedily succeeded by his judicious measures and his great activity, in bringing the country into quietness and order, and the Sante Fe trader and the government trains pass unmolested. Many of the Indians have fled to a distance from the route, and we may reasonably expect soon to see this region of country unde

GOLD REGIONS IN CALIFORNIA.

163 the safe guardianship of the hardy western pioneer and his trusty rifle.*

The glowing accounts of California, published by all who had visited it, and of which we attempted to give some idea in the first pages of this chapter, afforded ample ground for the opinion that the country would be rapidly filled up by emigrants from the United States. Since those pages were written, there has been added to the very many advantages of the country, there enumerated, one which throws them all into the shade; and which of itself would be sufficient in this money-getting age, to populate a desert. Scarcely had the treaty been completed by which California was ceded to the United States, when the enterprising, observant, inquisitive Yankee settlers discovered that the country from the Ajuba to the San Joaquim rivers, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles, and from the base towards the summit of the mountains, for a distance of seventy miles, was a mine of gold.

It is said that gold mines were discovered in California by the Jesuits, about the middle of the last century. The Jesuits concealed their discovery from the government, and the suspicion that they had done so perhaps had something to do with their expulsion froin Mexico. In 1769, Don Jose Galvez, Marquis of Sonora, undertook an expedition into California to ascertain the truth of the reports respecting the gold "in the rivers, in the soil, and in the rocks." He was accompanied by the celebrated Don Miguel Jose de Arenza, who, discouraged by the fruitless search of a few weeks, recommended the abandonment of the enterprise; and for contending that the marquis was insane for proceeding, was thrown into prison, where he remained several months. Nothing at all satisfactory, however, appears to have resulted from the search of Galvez, though the Jesuits afterwards disclosed, in Spain and France, that the charges of discovery and concealment, made against them, were true.

Thus the matter rested until the new discovery by the Americans in the commencement of the year 1848, since which time every day has disclosed some new deposit. It has been found in large quantities on the Sacramento, Feather river, Yerba river, the American Fork, north and south branches, the Cosamir, and in many dry ravines, and on the tops of high hills. On the streams where the gold has been subjected to the action of water and sand, it is found in fine grains; on the hills and among the clefts of the rocks, it is found in rough, jagged pieces, of a quarter or half an ounce in weight, and sometimes two or three ounces.

The manner in which it has hitherto been collected is extremely wasteful, yet the yield has been enormous. A variety of means are used for obtaining it, a few of which we give from a letter of the Rev. Walter Colton, alcalde of Monterey. "Some wash it out of the sand with bowls, some with a machine like a cradle, only longer and open at the foot, while at the other end, instead of a squalling infant, there is a grating upon which the earth is thrown, and then water; both pass through the grating, the cradle is rocked, and being on an inclined plane, the water carries off the earth, and the gold is deposited in the bottom of the cradle. So the two things most prized in this world-gold and infant beauty, are both rocked out of their primitive state, one to pamper pride, and the other to pamper the worm. Some forego cradles and bowls as too tame an occupation, and, mounted on horses, half-wild, dash up the mountain gorges, and over the steep hill, picking the gold from the clefts of the rocks with their bowie knives-a much better use to make of these instruments than picking the life out of men's bodies. Monterey, San Francisco, Sonoma, San Jose, and Santa Cruz are emptied of their male population. A stranger coming there would suppose he had arrived among a race of women. But not a few of the women have gone too, especially those who had got out of tea; for what is woman without her tea-pot-a Pythoness without her shaking tripod-an angel that has lost his lyre. Every bowl, tray, warming-pan, and piggin has gone to the mines. Every thing, in short, that has a scoop in it, that will hold sand and water. All the iron has been worked up into crowbars, pickaxes, and spades. Over a million of gold is taken from the mines every month; and this amount was expected to be more than doubled when the emigration from the states, the Sandwich Islands, Oregon, and the southern republics should arrive.

The amount collected by each man ranges from ten dollars to three hundred dollars daily. The publisher of "The Californian" newspaper states that on a tour to the mining district, with the aid of a shovel, pick, and tin pan, twenty inches in diameter, he collected from forty-four to one hundred and twenty-eight dollars a day, averaging about one hun

dred dollars. Previous to the discovery of the gold wages of labour ranged from one to three dollars per day; but the workingmen all became gold-hunters, and common labour could not be had for less than fifty cents per hour, while carpenters and other mechanics refused the offer of fifteen dollars per day for work. Whalers and trading-vessels coming into the Bay of San Francisco lost all their crews by desertion. The volunteer regiment of U. S. soldiers was mustered out of the service, and all of them went gold-hunting. Much sickness prevailed among those engaged in the work, but the number was constantly increasing, and at the latest accounts, large numbers were providing themselves with an outfit for five or six months, intending, as they could not traverse the country between the settlements and the mines during the rainy season, to spend that part of the year in the gold region. Mr. Larkin, formerly U. S. consul at Monterey, writes to Mr. Buchanan, that he passed two nights at a tent occupied by eight Americans,-two sailors, one clerk, two carpenters, and three daily workmen. They were in company, having two machines, each made from one hundred feet of boards, (worth there one hundred and fifty dollars, in Monterey fifteen dollars, being one day's work,) made similar to a child's cradle, ten feet long without the ends. On two evenings he saw these men bring to their tent the labours of the day. He supposes they made each fifty dollars per day. Their own calculation was two pounds of gold a day-four ounces to a man-sixty-four dollars.

The effect upon property in San Francisco and Monterey was astonishing to its owners. Three-fourths of the houses were deserted, and many could be bought at the price of the ground lots. All business ceased, except perhaps, that of the blacksmiths, whose forges proved to be placers in themselves, in consequence of the great demand for shovels, picks, and similar articles. Soldiers, sailors, clerks, alcaldes, and justices, all abandoned their employment, and resorted to the gold lands. Mr. Larkin states that he saw there a lawyer who was attorney-general of the king of the Sandwich Islands, the previous year, digging and washing out his ounce and a-half a day, while near him could be found most of his brethren of the long robe, working in the same occupation.

Governor Mason's despatch to the government at Washington, accompanied by very valuable specimens of the gold obtained by this rude system of mining, confirms in al particulars, the accounts received by private letters. He states that the entire gold district. with the exception of a very few grants made by the Mexican authorities, is public land. The large extent of country, the character of the people engaged, and the small force a his command, made it impracticable to adopt any means to secure to the government rents or fees for the privilege of mining the gold, and he therefore resolved to let all work freely. Crime was very rare, and no thefts or robberies had been committed in the gold district. The gold received from Governor Mason and others has been assayed at the United States Mint, and by eminent chemists, and proves to have an average fineness equal to that of standard American coin.

The route from the western states to California, via St. Louis and Santa Fe, we have had occasion to speak of in the preceding pages of this work, and the accounts given by Colonel Fremont and others who have travelled it, have been often repeated in public journals. From the Atlantic seaboard, the most usual passage to the coast of California has heretofore been by sailing vessels round Cape Horn. In order to shorten the time required by this passage, many resort to the route across the isthmus of Panama. The passengers by this route are landed at Chagres, a town situated at the mouth of the river of that name, in the midst of a swamp, where logs have to be laid along the streets at all times, to enable the inhabitants to pass from one of their mud huts to another. Its cli mate has long been famous as the very worst in the world, and travellers never stop there over night who can avoid it. The passage up the river is performed in canoes to Cruces, or Gorgona, forty or fifty miles, and then by mules or horses to Panama, a distance of twenty-one miles. Panama is by no means a healthy city, but it is much safer for a foreigner to reside in than Chagres. Here the traveller embarks for San Francisco and the gold country.

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ESIDES the three expeditions against Mexico, con ducted by Generals Taylor, Wool, and Kearny, the United States government had designed another, which was to land at some point on the western part of the Gulf of Mexico, and proceed thence to the capital. The force employed was denominated the Army of Invasion, and was placed under the care of the general-inchief of the American army, Major-General Scott.