formation of the earth, in
connection with quartz, and as all gold appears in a molten state, which
would go to corroborate this theory. A person informed me that he went
through a ravine where one side of the road was half of a large rock,
and on the other side, the other half. He could see where the two halves
would match each other exactly. Well, I lived that life for two months.
We had an addition to what I have described to eat--pork and beans on
Sunday, and Chili pudding. It had been baked and sweetened, and then
ground up like flour and put in bags. All you had to do was to moisten
it with water to eat it. All our flour came from that country, put up in
sacks of fifty and one hundred pounds each, but we had no vegetables.
One day we heard that they had dried-apple sauce at the hotel at Coloma
for dinner. The next day, Sunday, three of us walked eight miles to get
there to dinner to get a taste of it. We paid $2 apiece for our dinner,
and they had the sauce; it tasted so good that we did not begrudge the
price of the dinner and the walk back again. We were fully satisfied.

The rainy season set in. It rained three days, and although it was
three or four weeks before it would be possible for my houses to arrive,
yet it was a new country and no bridges. The streams might get up so as
to be impassable, and the houses were consigned to me, and no one but
myself to receive them. I thought I had better get back to San Francisco
at once. What I was making in the mines was mere nothing to what I had
at stake in the houses. Although, to tell the truth, I never left a
place with more regret, as hard as the fare was. We were interested
every day in the work for gold, and did not know when we might make a
rich strike. My last day there it rained. Notwithstanding, a companion
and myself went out to dig for a couple of hours. When we returned, we
had $25 worth. That was the last of my mining. I started the next
morning for Sacramento afoot. I sold my pistol and blankets for an ounce
each, $16 apiece. On my route I met a man bound for the same place. We
joined teams and became very intimate.

The only incident of importance was when we got within five miles of
Sacramento. We stopped at a log cabin and ordered dinner. A short time
after my companion came to me in some excitement and said he had looked
through the window and that they were cooking potatoes for dinner. I
could not believe the good news, and so went and looked for