Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/393



CHAPTER XVI.

AMONG THE  MINEHS. Mensura juris  vis  erat.

-Lucan.

The miners  of  the  flush  times,  their  characteristics and quaUty,  their  idiosyncrasies  and  temper,  are  as far  beyond  description  as  the  wind  and  weather  of Cahfornia,  where  the  twenty  sides  of  twenty  thousand hills, and  the  twenty  turns  of  twenty  thousand  ravines have each  an  individual  climate. Twenty life-times might be  spent  and  twenty  volumes  written  before  the story of  one  mining-camp  in  all  its  ramifications  could be told. The story  of  one  mining-camp  was  the  story of mankind;  and  to  follow  it  after  death  was  the story of  the  gods.

Each man  of  them  should  be  enriched  with  heaped- up grains  of  gold  brought  down  by  the  streams  of  the Sierra, as  Croesus  was  enriched  by  the  golden  sands  of Pactolus.

Soon many  of  the  camps  could  boast  their  church and schoolhouse,  and  temperance  hotel,  and  express oflice and  bank;  the  scattering  huts  and  cabins,  and split-board one  and  two-story  houses,  and  squares of shabby  shanties,  with  a  block  or  two  edged  on  one side with  red  brick  or  rough  stone  stores,  all  cluster- ing beside swift-running  streams,  and  the  now  stumpy hillsides, and  taking  on  the  dignity  of  town.

As out  of  rough  stones  a  smooth  even  wall  is  made, so  from   these    sometime    uncouth  characters,  these

hairy  and   woollen-shirted    men,  were    formed  staid

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