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Show 238 PERSONAL ADVENTURES them, or are disappointed altogether. But"if they are only tolerably successful, they usually stick to it; so I can't help saying I think it odd you came away." " Well, now ! let thetn stop that likes it. I'm sick and tired of mining-etarnally sick on it. It's on'y fit for niggers to do, that sort of work ; and darn' d if they'd stand it long. I had two notions, I reckon, when I came down here ; one was to buy a s1nall craft to trade up and down the rivers, and the other was to go back to the States, buy a small farrn, and settle down. 'A tween them 'are two notions I was in a reg'lar fix ; but I've made up my mind now." " And you are going to leave California, a country where, if you chose to stay and dig, you might make a fortune in a couple of years." " Well, I don't mean nothing else, and that's a fact." Having cleaned his gold by the process I have mentioned he put it back into the bags, ' . d and, having completed his arrangements, lai IN CALIFORNIA. 239 himself down to sleep on the top of his treasure. He left the next day, and I never heard anything mor.e of him. After continuing alone for a considerable period, I found that the necessity was daily becoming rnore imperative for n1e to procure assistance, as I lost so much valuable time in consequence of being obliged to attend to the out-of-door business, collecting orders, bills, &c. The best painters, however, were at the mines; arid those 'vho retnained, refused to lend their assistance under twenty-five dollars a day, which was quite as n1uch as I could earn 1nyself by the closest application. From one of them I heard that my late partner had purchased a brig for six thousand dollars, with which he intended to cornmence trading between San Francisco and Sacramento · and ' I subsequently ascertained from himself that this was correct. One morning, I chanced to meet with an ac qua·1 ntance whom I had known at Monterey, where he \Vas engaged in the capacity of a com'missary's clerk, but who had acquired |