sisted of one long straggling street of clapboard houses and log-cabins, built in a hollow at the side of a creek, and surrounded by high and steep hills.

"The diggings here had been exceedingly rich-men used to pick the chunks of gold out of the crevices of the rocks in the ravines with no other tool than a bowie-knife; but these days had passed, and now the whole surface of the surrounding country showed the amount of real hard work which had been done. The beds of the numerous ravines which wrinkle the faces of the hills, the bed of the creek, and all the little flats alongside of it, were a confused mass of heaps of dirt and piles of stones lying around the innumerable holes, about six feet square and five or six feet deep, from which they had been thrown out. The original course of the creek was completely obliterated, its waters being distributed into numberless little ditches, and from them conducted into the 'longtoms' of the miners through canvass hoses, looking like immensely long slimy sea-serpents.

"The number of bare stumps of what had once been gigantic pine-trees, dotted over the naked hill sides surrounding the town, showed how freely the axe had been used, and to what purpose was apparent in the extent of the town itself, and in the numerous log-cabins scattered over the hills, in situations apparently chosen at the caprice of the owners, but in reality with a view to be near to their diggings, and at the same time to be within a convenient distance of water and firewood..

"Along the whole length of the creek, as far as one could see, on the banks of the creek, in the ravines, in the middle of the principal and only street of the town, and even inside some of the houses, wère parties of miners, numbering from three or four to a dozen, all hard at work, some laying into it with picks, some shovelling the dirt into the long- toms, or with long-handled shovels washing the dirt thrown in, and throwing out the stones, while others were working pumps or baling water out of the holes with buckets. There was a continual noise and clatter, as mud, dirt, stones, and water, were thrown about in all directions; and the men, dressed in ragged clothes and big boots, wielding picks and shovels, and rolling big rocks about; were all working as if for their lives, going into it with a will, and a degree of energy, not usually seen among labouring men. It was altogether a scene which conveyed the idea of hard work in the fullest sense of the words,

and in comparison with which a gang of railway navvies would have seemed to be merely a party of gentlemen amateurs playing at working pour passer le temps.

"A stroll through the village revealed the extent to which the ordinary comforts of life were attainable. The gambling-houses, of which there were three or four, were of course the largest and most conspicuous buildings; their mirrors, chandeliers, and other decorations, suggesting a style of life totally at variance with the outward indications of everything around them.

"The street itself was in many places knee-deep in mud, and was plentifully strewed with old boots, hats, and shirts, old sardine-boxes, empty tins of preserved oysters, empty bottles, worn-out pots and kettles, old ham-bones, broken picks and shovels, and other rubbish too various to particularise. Here and there, in the middle of the street, was a square hole about six feet deep, in which one miner was digging, while another was baling the water out with a bucket, and a third, sitting alongside the heap of dirt which had been dug up, was washing it in a rocker. Waggons, drawn by six or eight mules or oxen, were navigating along the street, or discharging their strangely-assorted cargoes at the various stores; and men in picturesque rags, with large muddy boots, long beards, and brown faces, were the only inhabitants to be seen."

It was here that Mr Borthwick first "took up a claim," or established himself upon a bit of ground, and commenced gold-digger. Within a few miles of him a large tribe of Digger-Indians was encamped, who are described by him as degraded, repulsive, and miserably poor. The spectacle of the first flight of goldhunters scattering themselves over the soil, and digging with might and main to procure a yellow dust, which, to the untutored Indian mind, was principally remarkable for its weight and uselessness, must have excited a great deal of curious speculation among the natives. But suppose any one of the original tenants of the soil could have been made aware of the value of his heritage, what change in the revolution in the fortunes of that a fairy tale would have been equal to happy Digger! Observe him, as described by Mr Borthwick, emerging from the subterranean abode, the construction of which gives him his

"A company of American glee-singers, who had been concertising with great success in the various mining towns, were giving concerts in a large room devoted to such purposes. Their selection of songs was of a decidedly national charac ter, and a lady, one of their party, had won the hearts of all the miners, by sing ing very sweetly a number of old familiar ballads, which touched the feelings of the expatriated gold-hunters.

"I was present at their concert one night, when, at the close of the performance, a rough old miner stood up on his seat in the middle of the room, and after a few preliminary coughs, delivered himself of a very elaborate speech, in which, on behalf of the miners of Downieville, he begged to express to the lady their great admiration of her vocal talents, and in token thereof begged her acceptance of a purse containing 500 dollars' worth of gold specimens. Compliments of this sort, which the Scotch would call 'wiselike,' and which the fair cantatrice no doubt valued as highly as showers of the most exquisite bouquets, had been paid to her in most of the towns she had visited

in the mines. Some enthusiastic miners had even thrown specimens to her on the stage."

Readers of the book will observe that the adventurers at work in the mines and the adventurers in San Francisco appear under very different aspects. This difference is no doubt in great measure due to the fact that a large proportion of the population of the city were men who never intended to labour themselves, but only to prey upon those who did, whereas, in the mines, a man had nothing to trust to with confidence except his own honest exertions and a man who can sufficiently rely on these to cast himself into such a struggle, amid such privation in so distant and strange a

land, must necessarily have a great deal of good in him. Still, admitting all this, it is pleasant to find that human nature under such trying circumstances as life in the mines is much better than a gloomy imagination might have painted it, and that an educated and clever man like Mr Borthwick can pass through such an ordeal with increased respect for his species. "It is difficult," he says, “to believe that any one, after circulating much among the different types of mankind to be found in the mines, should not have a higher respect than before for the various classes which they represented."

At the conclusion of his work Mr Borthwick, with great power of comparison and analysis, estimates the different merits of the French and Anglo-Saxon races as colonists. Here they met on a neutral ground, and nowhere could the comparison be more fairly drawn.

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As we should have expected, the French showed themselves superior in neatness, method, and the art of making themselves comfortable,-tearing what pleasures they could through the iron gates of Californian life. But in the true end of that life, a steady pursuit of gold followed out with unflinching earnestness, singleness of purpose, energy, and independence, they were altogether excelled by the Americans and English; insomuch that, comparing," says Mr Borthwick, "the men of different nations, the pursuits they were engaged in, and the ends they had accomplished, one could not help being impressed with the idea, that if the mines had been peopled entirely by Frenchmen-if all the productive resources of the country had been in their hands-it would yet have been many years before they would have raised California to the rank and position of wealth and importance which she now holds.'

To those who have spent their lives amid the peace and order of old-established institutions, there must be something strangely, almost appallingly, interesting in these experiences of Mr Borthwick. They give us glimpses, not merely into a strange country, but into a strange world, that lies close round us, yet all unseen and unsuspected by gentle natures.

He has seen all the restless spirits of the world full of youth, strength, eagerness, and enterprise, forming a population without being a community. All their interests were individual, all their aims selfish. Those aims were of the most debasing kind, scarcely requiring other appliances than capacity for manual labour, so that a tribe of apes might almost have entered the field as competitors. To have lived in scenes where all those attributes which entitle men to veneration were absolutely worthless, is to have seen a state of things not to be found in the lowest tribes of savages. No intellect was necessary beyond the almost animal instinct for selecting a suitable patch of ground-no morality except that prescribed by Judge

Lynch. And when the tides of population flowing in and out were collected in a great reservoir something resembling society, it was unsoftened by female influence, by public opinion, by any of the moulding or ameliorating causes that so largely modify every other known community. Religion, politics, domestic life, associated interests, all the grooves of civilised existence, had no place there society was reduced to its original atoms, and these were impelled only by the desires for speedy gain and reckless enjoyment. These new impressions, conveyed as they are by a sagacious observer and most pleasant writer, cannot fail to be received by every reader of the book with deep interest and great advantage.

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VOL. LXXXI.-NO. CCCCXCVIII.

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