IMPRESSIONS OF CALIFORNIA 261 



cost about fifty dollars. To bring the water to a Long 

 Tom we generally use a hose, three inches wide and made 

 of canvas. To dry the ground before washing it, as you 

 suggest, would not be an advantage; why should we dry 

 it and then wet it again? You have no idea how difficult 

 it is to wash the gold out of ground which is dry; I can 

 wash three or four buckets of moist earth in the same 

 time and with the same quantity of water, that it takes 

 me to wash one bucket of dry earth. 



So far as game is concerned, you can imagine that near 

 cities like Marysville, with 2,500 inhabitants, or Sacra- 

 mento with 15,000 inhabitants, or in mining districts 

 where there are numerous settlements, it has pretty 

 nearly disappeared. Game birds are, however, yet to be 

 found in large numbers in the Sacramento valley. The 

 buffalo has never been indigenous in California, but is 

 found in endless numbers on the other side of the Sierra 

 Nevada. 



As for the drying of meat in the open air, what you 

 were told about that is only partly true. During the hot 

 summer months, meat decays here as quickly as it docs 

 elsewhere; but strange to say— during the rainy season 

 one can in some parts of the country, preserve meat an 

 unusually long time, by hanging it up in the open air; 

 ultimately however it will spoil. 



In consequence of reports received by returning 

 miners, I have for the present given up all idea about 

 going to Oregon. 



I have repeatedly mentioned my going by steamer to 

 and from Marysville, but have never given you a descrip- 

 tion of such a trip. Let me now do so. 



The style of the entire interior arrangement of the 

 American river steamers is so entirely different from 

 what you are accustomed to see in Europe, that I will first 

 give you a description of one of them, ere I proceed fur- 

 ther. The hull of the vessel is something like an egg- 

 shaped flat-boat, whose deck however extends in all di- 

 rections beyond its sides, thereby gaining a great deal of 

 room; on this deck st;un^s a trwo-story structure — a house, 



