Pieper & family arrived just now, (7 A.M.) after a fearful journey from Stockton by the stage. He says the driver was frequently obliged to stop his horses to let the dust blow off, not being able to see anything of them or of the road. But they are very well, with a great appetite, and that is the case with us all. I really think that I am already experiencing the health-giving quality of the air. I don’t think I could have stood the fatigue of the last two days and feel so perfectly fresh as I do now—on the Atlantic.

It needs health, at least, to compensate for this terrible dryness. It is a desolate country. Of all those streams shown on the map of the estate, I don’t think there are three in existence & these three are mere threads, used over & over & over again, so valuable that a man’s eyes will sparkle when he points them out to you. They are coaxed to the mills and made to wash gold again & again by ingenious contrivances and what [102]

[103] [104] finally gets away is seized upon by China-men and made the most of by their painstaking industry.

Well—I visited Princeton, Mt Ophir & Green Gulch yesterday. The mills were in excellent order, the mining very bad; the men in charge very good, the whole aspect of the country detestable.

I rather think that if I had known what the place was I should not have asked you to come here.

You must be prepared for a very hard life; I can hardly face it yet and see what you are going to do. But it’s too late to retreat; so the sooner we trim sail to the wind the better. You will have to live in the mountains. A region possessing less of fertility—less of living nature—you scarce ever saw. The style is Cyclopian, but the vegetation Lilliputian. The population—roving adventurers, China-men and Diggers—living for the most part in camp—that is, under temporary shelters of boards, or booths. The houses of the villages proper, the residencies of the quartz miners of the estate, the mechanics, clerks &c. are all of a temporary character, with rough & ready moveables—dirty of course—the dust is everywhere. No waggon passes on the road that I don’t need to have Charles come and dust off the table.

It must be very hot here in summer. At the hottest, mercury above 110°, the breeze if there is one gives no comfort. It seems to come [105]out of an oven. The plains to the Westward are still hotter. This intense heat extends through all California (which means furnace-hot) only that the strong sea-gales temper it on the Coast. They say this place is cooler than the mining regions to the Northward, and much cooler in general than the plains & valleys below (to the Northward as well as Westward). But it is very hot on the hills as well as in the valley. Mrs Fremont used to say—they repeat—that it was ten degrees cooler on the top of Mt. Bullion than in the valley, but nobody else has experienced it. The place of their camp seems to be off the estate, on a table land over the top of the ridge of Mt Bullion—on the highest land in the vicinity, chosen because of a small spring there—the only place above the valley where so far as is known water can be had. It is several miles away by a mountain trail, inaccessible by waggons.

I should think it most likely we should have to choose some rocky spur of the mountain to which water could be forced by the mill engines, and build a chalet, with any contrivance you can think of, for shielding off the sun. For in all ordinarily hot weather (90° to 100°), the breeze is the grand desideratum. Fremont’s mansion is a poor shantee—quite intolerable, as hot as it can be, by position—otherwise the position is agreeable—regarding distant landscape &c.

If I had been writing you last evening, without reference to what I have previously written, I might have said: “I never enjoyed a pleasanter drive or passed through a more lovely landscape than in coming from Mt. Ophir to Bear Valley this evening.” The explanation is that I came during twilight, when the ground appeared all the same as turf, and the vegetable productions, as trees. If you can look to a distance the views are fine—as in Italy.

But—aside from the general fact thus indicated—I regard the situation much more favorably than when I wrote the former part of this letter. Friday—after writing—I drove to the North end of estate. It is not far from here to the divide, when you look out of the valley to the Northward, and the scenery there changes completely. It is far more barren and rude but becomes grand—not picturesque but sublime in no contemptible degree. You see nothing but steep mountains, the lower Sierra Nevada, almost completely bare of trees, but many of them covered closely with low shrubs, that which is most abundant and which gives color and character to the general surface, being in landscape effect, like the gorse, furze or whins of England. They are quite like the heathery peaks of Scotland. The descent to the Merced is very steep and the ravine is very deep, the river is a muddy rill—of no account in landscape at this reason, (it appears nearly dry). We rode on, keeping to the right of the [106]

openings of Josephine mine, to a spur from which there was a view up the valley of the Merced which was still finer—El Capitan—the white cliff of Yo Semite being seen in the distance—a grey precipice, the upper portion only, for it is 4000 feet deep, 4000 feet perpendicular, (think of it 13 times as high as Trinity spire).

We went down the hill by the serpentine Railway, a slightly built tram-road in bad order, but perfectly safe and very—hot. The mills were fine—admirable—the mines extensive, heterogeneous, dirty—as it struck me—under slovenly management. We rode back by the “English Trail,” a road for pack-mules finely engineered through the ravine called Hell’s Hollow. It is as fine a mountain bridle road as you ever saw—perhaps two miles long and we galloped the whole distance. So here—take the Yo Semite view and all is a very delightful ride for you of about six miles—from Bear Valley. Take it in a couple of hours before dark and you will much enjoy it. There are some small distances for which mules would be more in character than horses.

Yesterday we had a drive of thirty six miles in the Southern part of the estate. The soil is less sterile, the trees less miserable and occasionally [107]

they are quite respectable. In many places there is a young growth of white pines 15 or 20 ft high, which promise well and are agreeably dense & fresh in color. I really believe that this part of the estate must be very charming in summer. The Surface is beautifully undulating: high rounded hills and deep dells, with oak trees scattered park-like everywhere. A few of these oaks are beautiful trees—some variety which retains freshness even at this season—and there are a few respectable in size and form—their delapidation being picturesque. In general, however, they are individually poor (stunted & infirm). There are some hills covered with the gorse-like shrub, and one dell dense with it and a number of other shrubs, growing closely, which was very beautiful in color.

The valleys are all ploughed—sometimes ten feet deep, for gold, and wherever there is a rivulet—no matter how small—wherever there is a puddle, no matter how thick—water springing to the surface but not making a stream from the rapidity of evaporation and absorption—there are Chinamen hard at work, digging and washing. Even where there is no water, they are found throwing up heaps of gravel and constructing ditches and little dams and reservoirs in preparation for the rainy season. They are all more or less in Chinese Costume, half of them in full rig.

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They work steadily and rapidly. I saw scenes exactly such as I have seen in China. This for instance—a treadmill used here to raise water for

Long Tom—goldwashers; in China for paddy fields. We passed through one village, chiefly Chinese—a few Germans on the outskirts—probably forty houses built closely on a narrow street with Chinese signs—one quite gay two story restaurant. There were women & children and dandies on the porches of the houses & shops.

In the Southeastern part there are abundant granite boulders and the surface, but for want of foliage, is quite like that of the Ramble. Shivered boulders and ravines, with knobby hills & hillocks. The Mariposa river, the most important stream running through the estate, is, at the best, six inches deep and ten feet wide: the diggings on it are enormous and, in the landscape, horrible. It is used, however, also for irrigation of gardens and there are a number of these most refreshing to see. Fruit trees as well as culinary vegetables of all kinds flourish wonderfully. We were freely supplied with as handsome large, fair thin-skinned apples as I ever saw—of good quality, crisp and juicy. The peaches were fair but not fine. Grapes pretty good. Pears enormous not well ripened. Figs & almonds are said to thrive and bear abundantly but we saw none. They all have to be watered, by turning on a stream for one night, once a week, otherwise they shed their fruit prematurely.

Mariposa, here considered “a large and flourishing town, county-seat of Mariposa County,” is “regularly laid out”—the main street at the North end turning up an impassible hill—and contains a hundred shantees, one pretty good German inn—in the Rossville style, several brick, one story, stores, and half a dozen comfortable little houses. There are three physicians, two newspapers and a general assortment. A lawyer, employed by the estate, who called on us at the Inn, where we dined, appeared a gentleman with whose family we should associate pleasantly. I was told that there were others, and it looked as if there might be.

Mariposa is 8 or 9 miles from Bear Valley. Ten miles beyond [109]

there, on the mountains, you come to Pine Woods said to be fine trees. There are two or three very tall fine pines near Mariposa and the young growth there is very pretty and promising.

What the estate wants & must have if a million or two of dollars would get it—is water. I am germinating great plans of washing all the gold out of the surface of the valley and then, making a garden of the debris. I think it possible. The hills, below here, will make the finest sheep range imaginable—say 20,000 acres, and I have a plan budding for that.

I have omitted the mines proper. I have “examined” twenty veins, half of which have been more or less worked, and know—as much as I did before. If I was to believe what is believed by someone with regard to each of them, there is gold enough on the estate to bridge the Atlantic with. On the whole, my belief is that there is an enormous amount of gold, as favorably situated for mining, so far as natural circumstances are concerned, as any in the world, but for all that, it will be an enormous work to “realize” upon it. The difficulty is—will be—to persuade the company to layout as much capital as is required at each or any spot. If there were twenty companies, each with a floating capital of [110]a million, I guess that, in twenty years, they would on an average have done exceedingly well; but some would have failed.

I went yesterday to the bottom of a mine, and there knocked out pieces of quartz, in which with a candle, I could see the particles of gold. The vein was a clean seam through a hill like that above (varying some in width, generally three feet), and the mine completely removed it so the hill was sliced in two—or had a thin slice taken out. The top part is prevented from falling down by wooden supports (b)—logs 12 to 20 inches thick set a few feet apart (3 to 10). These logs cost the estate last year $12000 and the plank used with them, (so), as much more. Going through any of these mines is very hard work climbing wet crags with a candle in your hand, but you will not be able to resist their fascination, I presume, any more than the rest of us.

Bring or send a plan for the house. It should secure coolness and ventilation to the last degree. It should have deep piazzas or galleries with low shades. It should have a bold, rough-hewn character in outline as well as detail (of which Knapp’s cottage at Walpole, is the best example I know.) The walls may be of small pieces of slaty stone (2 inches thick x), the corners and string courses of lime stone—or if very much desired, of granite but granite would be very expensive, lime stone is scarce. Slate, for a rough wall, cheap. There is a steam saw mill and pine in abundance twelve miles away (not a planing mill), and lumber is the common & cheapest building material. This store is of the fragmentary slate, laid up with galore of poor mortar, and hardly weather-proof in consequence. To save it from falling down they are now covering it with cement-stucco. Kitchen should be detached probably, (that is customary) and chimneys outside. All the chimneys are stove-pipes in this town, but there is plenty of brick clay (some adobe huts,) and bricks are made at Mariposa Town. They might be cheaper for walls than stone. I should have preferred boards, as probably cheaper, but stone would be cooler. It is impossible to make too much allowance for shrinkage of all wood-work. Billiard balls, boiled in oil, sent here from San Francisco will crack. Doors made in New York & refitted at San Francisco, shrink to pieces here. Nice work you cannot have, therefore try for thick, substantial work, rude in surface, admirable in lights and shadows. The pine has a good reddish yellow color. Let everything be calculated for rude mechanics. Steam power (for sawing detail) will be cheap to us. Iron & glass, dear. Freight on everything you bring or order will be 2 cts a pound from San Francisco—perhaps more if in winter—but only in special cases. Time, ten days. I should like nothing better than your favorite chalet curtained gable to the [111]valley the roof over hanging everything. Being on a hill-top, there should be a cellar front. It must have shade around it and be shaded, independently of trees, & look shady; and as if knocked up by some mountaineer with a genius, and an axe & steam saw mill.

You can try to get Garretty to come out & build it. I enclose a memorandum.

The weather is delightful, just the finest autumnal weather you ever saw, the sun somewhat scorching toward

noon, but quite as cool as you want it in the shade, and the mornings & evenings delicious. All agree as to healthfulness of the valley & hills—no fever & ague—nothing in particular. If men die, they die with their boots on. The natural death of the country is cold lead in the brain. There are no churches in Bear Valley but we had a horse race in the main street, at which a great deal of money changed hands, at noon today. The only other sign of Sunday is a Chinese woman very smart in tarry hair and sky blue pantaloons. The Italians are gambling in the Roman way—loudly. Mills & mines are stopped. We have a lot of Italians in the village.

Beef, mutton & vegetables good & cheap. Fowls & eggs scarce and dear. Fish “perch” from the Merced. They are like a coarse bass a pretty good fresh-water fish. In the spring they get salmon. Quails very abundant, good size, less gamey than ours, rather dry—very cheap, being shot by Indians. Rabbits & hares plenty & cheap.

There are a good many birds—doves, a large blue-bird, jackdaws, sparrows, larks. There are said to be plenty of rattle-snakes—though not nearly as many as formerly as the Chinese eat them—horned toads are known. Bears—grizzlies & black are occasionally seen on the mountains. Deer only in winter, but they are not far off. Vegetables are all excellent and cheap. Fruit also.

There are no servant girls in town. China men do scullery work, [112]and there are French cooks. There is an excellent French bakery, and—a Bath House!

I have not heard a word from any of you since I left New York.