210 EAST PRUSSIA TO THE GOLDEN GATE 



good and much frequented country road leads to that 

 place. Long Bar extends for about a mile up the river 

 and is divided into three parts, viz.: "Big Bar," so- 

 called on account of its former richness, miners making 

 even as late as the last year from 12 to 20 Dollars per 

 day; then ''the Flat," a level sandy piece of ground 200 

 or 300 yards wide, covered with a growth of short grass 

 on such places as are not worked by miners, and where 

 these find but little gold, seldom more than 2 cents to the 

 bucket; and lastly the lower end of the bar— "Island 

 Bar" — evidently formerly an island, since between it and 

 the higher ground one can yet plainly see the old river 

 bed, even now in autumn, winter and spring full of water. 

 This old river bed is called "the slough." The banks 

 of this slough are covered with brush, just as the some- 

 what more elevated center of it, which, however, also 

 shows a few stunted oaks and pines. Elsewhere on the 

 island one will not notice anything but naked piles of 

 rocks— desolation itself. 



The tents of the miners, the stores and boarding houses, 

 are not put up on the bar itself, but upon higher ground, 

 on the bank of the river, which is about as high as the 

 "Veilchenberge" (Violet Hills) on the "Neue Bleiche" 

 near Konigsberg— and where they form a continuous 

 irregular line, so that the whole looks like a village of 

 tents— about 300 of them— picturesquely scattered and 

 partly hidden among brushwood and trees. 



Behind the tents the ground rises again to a second 

 terrace, about as high as the first, thus forming a gently 

 sloping elevation covered with short grass, and here and 

 there a bit of brushwood; the ridge itself being a con- 

 stant change of gently undulating hills and dales, and the 

 whole forming the outermost link between the Sierra 

 Nevada and the vast, boundless savanna, where the 

 mighty Sacramento— a stream as broad as the Elbe— in 

 its slow course absorbs its numerous tributaries. 



One can hardly imagine such a variety of lovely land- 

 scapes as are shown in this part of the country, especially 

 now, in the spring of the year, when numerous rivulets 



