. "Dark and
ominous rumors". Dark hams, rusty pork, etc., stored.

Letter _the_ Twelfth

A STORMY WINTER--HOLIDAY SATURNALIAS

_From our Log Cabin,_ INDIAN BAR,

_January_ 27, 1852.

I wish that it were possible, dear M., to give you an idea of the
perfect saturnalia which has been held upon the river for the last
three weeks, without at the same time causing you to think _too_
severely of our good mountains. In truth, it requires not only a large
intellect, but a large heart, to judge with becoming charity of the
peculiar temptations of riches. A more generous, hospitable,
intelligent, and industrious people than the inhabitants of the
half-dozen bars, of which Rich Bar is the nucleus, never existed; for
you know how proverbially wearing it is to the nerves of manhood to be
entirely without either occupation or amusement, and that has been
preeminently the case during the present month.

Imagine a company of enterprising and excitable young men, settled upon
a sandy level about as large as a poor widow's potato-patch, walled in
by sky-kissing hills, absolutely _compelled_ to remain on account of
the weather, which has vetoed indefinitely their exodus, with no place
to ride or drive even if they had the necessary vehicles and quadrupeds;
with no newspapers nor politics to interest them; deprived of all books
but a few dog-eared novels of the poorest class,--churches, lectures,
lyceums, theaters, and (most unkindest cut of all!) pretty girls,
having become to these unhappy men mere myths; without _one_ of the
thousand ways of passing time peculiar to civilization, most of them
living in damp, gloomy cabins, where heaven's dear light can enter only
by the door; and when you add to all these disagreeables the fact that,
during the never-to-be-forgotten month, the most remorseless,
persevering rain which ever set itself to work to drive humanity mad
has been pouring doggedly down, sweeping away bridges, lying in
uncomfortable puddles about nearly all of the habitations, wickedly
insinuating itself beneath un-umbrella-protected shirt-collars,
generously treating to a shower-bath _and_ the rheumatism sleeping
bipeds who did not happen to have an india-rubber blanket, and, to
crown all, rendering mining utterly impossible,--you cannot wonder that
even the most moral should have become somewhat reckless.

The saturnalia commenced on Christmas evening, at the Humboldt, which,
on that very day, had passed into th