Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 | Page 8

search of
better gatherings; our American friends began to get tired of the bluff
that flogged creation; for although we were getting gold, it was but
little, and the more impatient spirits of our company departed with
them to find another.
I wondered that Bill did not join their company. He was long ago weary
of gold-washing; the work was too regular, and the returns far too slow
for him. He used to declare that shopkeeping was better; and it is

probable that most of us had similar convictions regarding the
vocations we had left in Britain; but except occasionally cooking for
the rest, smoking the tobacco he had providently brought with him, and
suggesting wild projects of digging down the bluff, and dredging the
river for lamps of gold, which, he said, all the grains we found came off,
Bill at last did nothing at all. With hard labour and harder fare, we had
collected some of us more and some less of the precious dust; but
nobody's fortune was yet made, and the rainy season set in.
The heavy rains confined us for days to the shelter of tent and wagon;
but the days were nothing to the nights, which on the banks of the
Sacramento are almost equinoctial throughout the year; and we had
neither coal nor candle. All the fuel that could be found was rather too
little for culinary purposes. Concerning the rest of our comforts, there
is no use in being particular; but at intervals between the drowning
showers, we were willing enough to come out and work, though the
muddy soil and the swollen river made our labour still harder, and our
profits less. The best service was done us by an honest Paisley weaver,
who had left his helpmate and two children at San Francisco, in hopes
of taking back, quite full, a strong chest, of some two hundredweight
capacity, which he had brought with infinite pains to the diggings. He
enlivened our wet leisure by repeating whole volumes of Burns and
Scott. Bill also returned to his wonderful stories, though the captain and
mate sneered at them more than ever; indeed, they were by far the most
discontented of the company, and an unaccountable sort of distrust
seemed growing between them and Bill. At length, fever and ague
began to thin the ranks of the gold-seekers; we saw the working-parties
around us diminish day by day, and graves dug in the shadows of the
low coppice. Our company kept lip amazingly, perhaps because,
according to the captain's counsel, we held but little communication
with other workers; but the want of the buffalo-meat, which the Indian
traders were accustomed to bring, was much felt among us; and one
day less rainy than usual, Bill Williams, as the idlest, was sent up the
river's bank, on their wonted track, to look out for their coming. The
rest were busy, and did not miss him; but I thought he stayed long. The
sky became unusually dark; great clouds floated over us from the west,
and then broke with a sudden thunder-crash, which was renewed every

five minutes with such rain and lightning as I had never seen. We ran to
our tents, and, when fairly sheltered, Bill also arrived, wet to the skin,
out of breath, and looking terribly frightened. He said, hastily, that he
had seen nothing, and no word of the Indians; but the poor fellow
began to shiver as he spoke, and before evening the fever was strong
upon him.
To keep the rest safe, he was quartered alone in a small hut which the
Americans had left us. It was a poor shelter, being built of turf, and
roofed with boughs and grass, but as good as any we had. There was no
surgeon among us, and handing him food or drink was deemed a
perilous business; but all his comrades had a sort of a liking for Bill,
and, besides, he was regarded as the palladium of the party. The fever
was not violent, though Bill raved at times, and all his wanderings were
after gold. I have heard him talk for half-hours together in a loud
whisper, as if communicating a secret to some very dull car, concerning
a pool among rocks, with glistening sands, and something shining far
down in a crevice. He was restless, too, and kept looking out on the
track of the Indians after they had come and gone. One evening I
observed him particularly so. The night fell with heavy rain; we all
took early to shelter, and slept so soundly, that Bill was forgotten
among us; but in the morning we found him lying wrapped in his
blanket, as thoroughly wet as if he had been dipped in the river, while
the hut remained