and, on the strength of our respectable appearance, allowed Mrs. Crockett to preside at this repast, which she did in a nervous manner, as if momentarily under the expectation of being shot.

We left our host "right side up," and, proceeding on our way, we soon lost sight of the cultivated country and began to traverse undulating plains studded with the dwarf oak. The road now gradually becomes worse, and has long ceased to be level; we pass road-side houses, whose names indicate the localities in which they are placed: "Rolling Hills," "Willow Springs," "Red Mountain," and so forth.

After travelling twenty miles we ascend the first range of hills; the pine-tree appears, and here and there we catch glimpses of the American Fork River. As we leave the plain, and ascend the wooded hills, trails may be observed indicated by blazed trees, leading to mountain gorges, where diggers are at work. Flowers clothe the hills in the richest profusion, and most conspicuous is the yellow poppy, which lightens up these desolate red hills for a few weeks each spring; growing in rich masses that, in contrast to the bleak and stunted herbage, are like sunbeams, and like sunbeams leave every spot they cheer more gloomy, when, under the influence of the first hot summer wind, they droop in a night and pass away.

CHAPTER XIII.

AN OLD SHE-GOAT-OUR MINERALOGIST-GOLD DIGGERS-MURDERER'S BAR

WE reached the Salmon Fall diggings about noon, and, without halting, crossed a wooden bridge that had been built here on the north fork of the American River; we paid five dollars toll to its enterprising owner, and ascended the opposite hill. The road here became so uneven that we got out of the waggon in preference to being pitched out, and we were kept very busy in locking the wheels when it went down. hill, and pushing behind when it went up. We passed no houses now, but trails led off on either side, whilst occasionally we encountered solitary miners prospecting" near the road. "Prospecting" is the term applied to a pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, that is, searching for gold where no trace of it is apparent on the surface.* There are plenty of

prospectors " in the mines, but the profession scarcely pays, for the "prospector" is the jackall who must search for many days, and, when he has found, the lion, in the shape of the old miner, steps in and reaps the benefit. So that there is something to be learnt in the diggings, for undoubtedly one of the first principles in life is to look on while others work, and then step in and cry "halves."

We stopped at dusk at a house a little off the trail, and, having had supper, we spread our blankets on the ground, and being tired were soon asleep; but we soon awoke again, for, separated from us by a canvas screen, was a young goat, whose dismal bleatings made "night hideous: " vain were the imprecations that were showered on the goat's head; daylight discovered him still crying, and us awake and unrefreshed.

AN OLD SHE-GOAT-OUR MINERALOGIST.

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As we prepared to start, in rather a sullen humour, what was our astonishment when our host accosted us smilingly thus: "I had an addition to my family last evening, gentlemen, and as fine a boy as ever you saw!" So he must be, thought we, to have a voice like a goat; and, as we went on our way, we recalled the compliments with which, during the night, we had greeted the new-born babe, under the innocent impression that it was a kid; and conjectured to ourselves the feelings of the mother when she heard herself alluded to as an old she-goat!

As the waggon followed the trail, we walked through the forest at the side; the botanist of our party had now ample employment, and tortured a new flower at each step; whilst our mineralogist pocketed specimens with such fervour that their accumulated weight began at last to tell severely on his frame, upon which he discharged his gleanings surreptitiously, to our great amusement, for we insisted that he had dropped them by accident, and made him pocket them again. If the people of this world had but to carry their hobbies up a dusty mountain, under a hot sun, in the shape of a bag of quartz, how soon they'd cast them off!

At noon, having reached the ridge of the mountain, we had an extended view of the gold country as it

stretched away for miles beyond us in a succession of steep red hills; through these the American Fork rushed impetuously, and huge masses of red-woods clothed the highest mountains; while, in the distance, the white peaks of the Sierra Nevada were perceptible; those famous mountains of which the reputed wealth is still as much the Dorado of the Californian diggers, as were the placer fields before me once the dream of the Mexicans of the sixteenth century. "Prospectors" visit these cheerless snows never to return; but, like the discontented squirrel of the fable, who would ascend the sun-lit hills that looked so much like gold, reach them, utter a moral and die.

A turn of the road presented a scene of mining life, as perfect in its details as it was novel in its features. Immediately beneath us the swift river glided tranquilly, though foaming still from the great battle which, a few yards higher up, it had fought with a mass of black obstructing rocks. On the banks was a village of canvas that the winter rains had bleached to perfection, and round it the miners were at work at every point. Many were waist-deep in the water, toiling in bands to construct a race and dam to turn the river's course; others were entrenched in holes, like grave-diggers, working down to the "bed rock." Some were on the brink of the