e and faro, are now in constant requisition. But as a person
would starve to death on _toujours des perdrix_, so a man cannot
_always_ be playing cards. Some _literary_ bipeds, I have been told,
reduced to the last degree of intellectual destitution, in a beautiful
spirit of self-martyrdom betook themselves to blue blankets, bunks, and
Ned Buntline's novels. And one day an unhappy youth went pen-mad, and
in a melancholy fit of authorship wrote a thrilling account of our
dreadful situation, which, directed to the editor of a Marysville
paper, was sealed up in a keg and set adrift, and is at this moment, no
doubt, stranded, high and dry, in the streets of Sacramento, for it is
generally believed that the cities of the plain have been under water
during the storm. The chief amusement, however, has been the raffling
of gold rings. There is a silversmith here, who, like the rest of the
miserable inhabitants, having nothing to do, discovered that he could
make gold rings. Of course every person must have a specimen of his
workmanship, and the next thing was to raffle it off, the winner
generally repeating the operation. Nothing was done or talked of for
some days but this important business.

I have one of these rings, which is really very beautifully finished,
and although perhaps at home it would look vulgar, there is a sort of
massive and barbaric grandeur about it which seems well suited to our
wild life of the hills. I shall send you one of these, which will be to
you a curiosity, and will doubtless look strangely enough amid the
graceful and airy politeness of French jewelry. But I think that it
will be interesting to you, as having been manufactured in the mines by
an inexperienced workman, and without the necessary tools. If it is too
hideous to be worn upon your slender little finger, you can have it
engraved for a seal, and attach it as a charm to your watch-chain.

Last evening Mr. C. showed us a specimen ring which he had just
finished. It is the handsomest _natural_ specimen that I ever saw. Pure
gold is generally dull in hue, but this is of a most beautiful shade of
yellow, and extremely brilliant. It is, in shape and size, exactly like
the flower of the jonquil. In the center is inserted, with all the nice
finish of art (or rather of nature, for it is her work), a polished
piece of quartz, of the purest shade of pink, and between each radiant
petal is set a tiny crystal of colorless quartz, every one of which