64 HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



top of them a bed-tick I had reserved for the purpose. 

 The contrivance was a sorry one at the best, but 

 shelter was indispensable; and great Avas my disap- 

 pointment — though I procured the timber after a pain- 

 ful search — to find that the rocks presented an insu- 

 perable obstacle to my employing it as I intended. 

 My efforts to sink the poles proved utterly futile, and 

 I was at last compelled to renounce the attempt in 

 despair. I then packed up our goods into as close a 

 compass as possible ; and, having requested one of 

 the Spaniards in Don Emanuel's party to keep watch 

 over them, departed to explore the ravine. 



" Within a few paces of our encampment there was 

 a large area of ground, probably half a mile square, 

 the surface of which consisted of dark soil and slate, 

 and was indented with innumerable holes of every 

 possible dimension, from six inches to as many feet or 

 more, wide and deep. In all of these lay abundance 

 of water, of which large quantities are to be found a 

 little beneath the surface, the ravine being supplied 

 with it in great abundance by the rains that pour 

 down from the hills during the wet season. To the 

 extreme right of our camp, the ground assumed a 

 more rocky character ; and, from the vast deposit of 

 stagnant water, did not seem to offer many attractions 

 to the miners. Yet there was scarcely a spot in any 

 of these places where the crow-bar, the pick, or the 

 jack-knife, had not been busy : ' evidence that the 

 whole locality must have been extremely rich in the 

 precious metal, or it would not have been so thoroughly 

 worked. 



" In crossing the ravine, I was obliged to leap from 

 one mound of earth to another, to avoid plunging 

 ancle-deep in mud and water. It was wholly deserted 



