pose, has befallen us, in the sudden departure
of our sable Paganini.

Yes; Vattal Ned to the valley hath gone,
In a Marysville kitchen you'll find him;
Two rusty pistols he girded on,
And his violin hung behind him.

His fiddle is heard no more on all the Bar, and silence reigns through
the calico halls of the Humboldt. His bland smile and his dainty plats,
his inimitably choice language and his pet tambourine, his woolly
corkscrew and his really beautiful music, have, I fear, vanished
forever from the mountains.

Just before he left he found a birthday which belonged to himself, and
was observed all the morning thereof standing about in spots, a perfect
picture of perplexity painted in burnt umber. Inquiry being made by
sympathizing friends as to the cause of his distress, he answered,
that, having no fresh meat, he could not prepare a dinner for the log
cabin, worthy of the occasion!

But no circumstance can put a man of genius entirely _hors de combat_.
Confine him in a dungeon, banish him to an uninhabited island, place
him, solitary and alone, in a boundless desert, deprive him of all but
life, and he will still achieve wonders. With the iron hams, the
piscatory phenomenon referred to in my last, and a can of really
excellent oysters, Ned's birthday dinner was a _chef-d'oeuvre_. He
accompanied it with a present of a bottle of very good champagne,
requesting us to drink it (which we _did_, not having the fear of
temperance societies or Maine-law liquor bills before our eyes) in
honor of his having dropped another year into the returnless past.

There has been a great excitement here on account of the fancied
discovery of valuable quartz-mines in the vicinity of the American
Rancho, which is situated about twenty miles from this place. Half the
people upon the river went out there for the purpose of prospecting and
staking claims. The quartz apparently paid admirably. Several companies
were speedily formed, and men sent to Hamilton, the county seat, to
record the various claims. F. himself went out there, and remained
several days. Now, however, the whole excitement has turned out to be a
complete humbug. The quicksilver which was procured at the rancho for
the testing of the quartz, the victims declare, was salted, and they
accuse the rancheros of conniving at the fraud for the purpose of
making money out of those who were compelled to lodge and board with
them while prospecting. The accu