I yesterday received your note from Litchfield of 17th October. It grieves me that you are so flurried and bewildered. I hope the next time you will have got your “under clothes made.”

I long for the children & you here. I sent Martin to San Francisco this week and having got a chafe-sore in my mountain journey which festers & bothers & keeps me close, I have time to reflect how lonely it is. Pieper at dinner is a relief but even he is not very exhilerating and I actually see nobody else day in & day out, except Charles and miners who come with orders for pay and whom I pay in checks. The arrival of the stage every day from one side or the other, and a dog-baiting in the street supply the only extra-office matters of daily interest. It [is] only on Sundays that we have a horse-race. The China-men have frequent holidays, when they put on clean clothes and fire crackers but they are in a quarter by themselves, one of the environs.

I had a highly interesting journey in the mountains—exploring the South Fork. We passed through the Big Tree Grove. The big trees are in a dense forest of other trees, a few standing free. They don’t strike you as monsters at all but simply as the grandest tall trees you ever saw, although among others as tall or nearly so. You recognize them as soon as your eye falls on them, far away, not merely from the unusual size of [137]the trunk but its remarkable color—a cinnamon color, very elegant. You feel that they are distinguished strangers [who] have come down to us from another world,—but the whole forest is wonderful. I never saw and I don’t think you ever did any trees to compare with the pines, cedars (arbor vitae) and firs—generally 200 to 250 ft high and as thrifty and dense, & bright in foliage as saplings. Trunks of 4 feet are ordinary, of 6 ft not uncommon. The scenery otherwise is fine and at some points grand—terrible. One or two annual trips into it are the highest gratifications peculiar to the country that you have to look forward to. It is all horse-back & packing and the trail is rather difficult, sometimes. We went a few miles beyond the trails, which made it worse for us. We got our water measurement, the chief object of the trip—just in time. A severe storm commenced while we were at it. I rode back 40 miles in a day—which I found was too much for me—down the steep hill trails—but I am well again now. The dust is quite laid, the mountain surfaces are green, (not the trees but the grass) & we have the fine autumn weather again.

My Dear Knapp, (when I say Knapp I mean Jenkins & Bloorx ),

This letter is for you & your wife only—please. I think a great deal of you and constantly comfort myself with the idea of your being here one of these days. I often ask myself whether I can honestly and rightly reckon on getting you here. I think there is a compact between us under which I have a right to expect you and build upon your coming when the war is over in the main, if I think best for you. I was much disappointed at first. I think the dry, dusty winter of summer which I found, terrified me. But I have got to think of that, as far as the comfort [139]of the eye is concerned, as we do—say in Washington—upon winter, while the clear air (except on dusty roads) the tranquility & at the same time the vitality of the air—the immunity from rain & storm and sudden change, make it every other way highly comforting & satisfactory. The nights are cool—cold—and the whole exceedingly healthful. So much is experience. In the valley it is terribly hot in summer, sometimes. But I rather think the weather is pleasant during the greater part of the summer, days warm to hot, nights cool; ordinarily a pleasant brisk breeze. At times there is real suffering from heat but those times are not of long duration. The spring—everybody raves about the spring. Sleeping from dryness half the year; neither asleep nor awake during the short winter. In the Spring Nature bursts forth with double the vitality she has elsewhere. The whole mountain sides glow with flowers and desert places become as gardens. And this spring is not short; it runs into summer, and summer is rich summer till, quite suddenly—in three weeks—the four or five or six or seven months’ drought sets in and everything browns over like a mowing-field after mowing and in a drought. As for the winter by name, I judge that it is very different in successive years; on an average, a good deal of gloomy weather, steady hard rain for a week sometimes & then spells of very agreeable mild wintry weather, the atmosphere like a pleasant April day.

The grand point for you is, after all, that it does appear to be very healthful—uncommonly so. I think that here in the valley and on the estate generally it promises to be as favorable a climate for weak lungs as any I know, and it is absolutely free as far as I can ascertain from all malaria. I suppose it must have its special evils in this way, but I can’t hear of any yet. I don’t hear of any common complaints which might have special local exciting causes, as typhoid or lung fever, but only of scarlet-fever, measles & such like—named as common diseases—which are common everywhere & independently of local circumstances.

The immediate scenery in its constructive features is satisfactory. There is nothing rich—the valleys are rocky and dry and the trees poor, but there is ruggedness & picturesqueness in some hills—a bold simplicity in others, and the gradations of surface in the valleys are very agreeable. There is no forest as we have it. The trees stand openly, all up the mountain, and grass grows under them to the very top—thin poor, fine grass, the soil being a scarcely perceptible disintegration of granite & slate. It appears to me the finest sheep country in the world. Of the 70,000 acres not more than 30 are enclosed. The rest is all an open range & there is very little ground to which you cannot ride—none except a few precipices proper—where you could not drive your sheep. I mean to start a flock in the spring. If you were here I should ask you to take it up for the company and that is what I rather look to as your business any how, when you come, whether on or off the estate.

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The great want of the region is water. I can make nothing of it without water. I think it will cost about $1,000,000. to get a good large trout brook into it through a canal. I have made a reconnaissance for it, & shall survey it next summer. If the company should refuse to let me get it in—or if I should conclude it not feasible—I shall not advise you to come to Mariposa—but I think it will come, and with it you & civilization.

There is very little civilization here now, but a very queer mixture of camp, squatter & town life, leaving out the better part of all, a good deal. Nobody feels fixed or settled. Men walk about with their effects tied up in a blanket, ready to take a house, shantee, tent or tree as it may happen when night comes. Of course they don’t build houses of worship nor “call” ministers. The towns are wooden camps.

I have it in mind to form a different kind of town and shall begin next summer if the company will let me.

As for the mines & my business, between ourselves, it looks badly. I don’t think it was a big swindle exactly, but it was rather hard, & the sale was effected by a most extraordinary stroke of luck. The mines were paying a profit of $100,000 a month when the sale was made. They had not been paying well long, & it looked just like the beginning of a grand result of the previous good management. Really this previous management was the worst possible & the luck had run out months before I got here. When I took hold, I dare not tell you how bad it was. I feel doubtful—very—whether I can get a profit out of it. But just think of it—the grand expense is, of course, for labor—and labor costs by the day more than three times as much as it does in New York. If it can be made to pay a small profit now—what will it not do, by & by, when the labor market of the country is a little better equalized?

A little capital goes a great way here—people make and use money very freely. All sorts of mechanics who can bring with them labor saving machinery so as to make their individual skill go a great way—as carpenters with steam-planing mills, mortice-machines, saws &c—by which a few hands can do a great deal of work—such men do best here. The profits of business are always at a very high rate. Men are not content with moderate profits—in fact few can live on moderate profits because they have borrowed capital at high rates of interest & generally live extravagantly. Any man who can own (build) his store or shop and pay cash for his stock, can outrun all ordinary competition in any business.

If you know anything about steam laundry arrangments—what they are & cost—let me know. I think something of the sort is more wanted here than a church. I suppose that most of the four or five thousand people on the estate have their clothes washed “out”—if at all. The business is altogether in the hands of Chinese, who use strong lyes & rapidly use up the fabrics, & charge 30 to 40 cts a piece. Spring water is used which is hard. We have a pretty good running stream at the North [141]End, but in winter it is muddy. I suppose [we] must filter or distill it.

There are lots of men, practiced in prospecting this country—make a business of it—so I don’t send for your Walpolian.

Martin is well & doing well & improves on acquaintance. I am getting to love him a good deal. Henry will tell you about himself I suppose. He is in a pretty good place I think—is liked by his immediate superior—who perhaps is not his superior, at any rate Henry has an opportunity of making himself felt with him—pay $100 a month, and if the estate does well, pretty sure promotion or an opportunity of making a good business for himself, I mean, after a year or two. We have found his judgment very sound.

I don’t despair of getting Jenkins here. There’s room for a good doctor I think now. The nearest is at Mariposa & the best there a “French Doctor from Paris”—that is 12 miles away from Campodeloso which is the true and original name of this settlement.

I’ve got your letter, damn your eyes; it made me snuffle. Tell me all about what you are doing—& the fellows. I am homesick for 244—remember, & I want a cup of tea—tisn’t late—but time the children were abed.