Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 | Page 9

quite dry. Where he had been, or under what illusion
of the fever, we could not learn, for he never spoke a rational word
after. The wet and exposure increased his malady tenfold. He became
fiercely delirious, and struck at whoever approached him, swearing he
would let nobody kill him for his gold. The captain warned us all, that
this was the most dangerous time for infection; but I saw that he and his
brother had got wind of something, for their eyes were never off the
hut.
Towards the second evening, Bill grew worse, his ravings became faint
and low, and he lay gathered up on a corner of his mattress. I had
placed a pitcher of water as near him as possible, escaping by chance a
blow which the poor soul struck at me in his feverish fury; but I could
not help thinking of him when we had all gone to rest. The night was so

still, that I could hear the rush of the river and the cries of the
night-hawks on its opposite bank; but being unable to sleep, I crept out
of the tent, and looked to Bill's hut. A smothered sound of scuffling
came from that direction, and stepping nearer, I saw by the rising moon,
which just then shone with extraordinary brightness, two men
struggling, as it seemed for life, in the narrow space between Bill's bed
and the door.
'If you don't give me the full half, I'll tell them all,' said the voice of the
captain's brother; but almost as he spoke, his antagonist threw him
heavily back. I knew it was upon poor Williams, for a low moan
reached my ear, and I sprang forward just in time to intercept the victor,
who stumbled over me as he rushed out, and a heavy bag rolled from
him. The next moment the other was at my side, and I stood face to
face with the captain and his brother in the broad moonlight. The bag
for which they had sneaked, and sinned, and scuffled, had burst by the
fall, and its contents--stones, gravel, and sand, with some small
sparkles of gold-dust amongst them--were scattered at my feet. Both
stood stupefied, and I stepped into the hut; but Bill was dead, and
growing cold, with his stiff hands stretched out, as if clutching at
something, and a wild expression of pain and anger in the ghastly face,
which lay turned up to the moon. Her light filled the hut, and lay upon
plain, and tent, and river. It was a glorious night, such as sometimes
shines in the gold-country. I woke up my comrades, and told them what
I had seen, but they all said: 'Poor Bill! How could they help it? and it
was a good thing that the captain and his chum had been disappointed;'
upon which every man composed himself again to sleep.
Next morning, the captain and mate were gone with all their traps,
having joined, as we afterwards heard, a company returning to San
Francisco. We laid Bill beside the gold-seekers who rested in the
coppice, and our company broke up, and scattered away: some settled
at San Francisco; some went to the United States; and I, having
collected through so many hardships almost a pound of dust, returned
to the employment I had left in London with such high contempt. From
an old comrade, however, still located at the diggings, I heard by letter
that a party of Americans had made a great discovery of gold among

some rocks in a creek of the Sacramento, and that they had found,
sticking fast in a crevice close by, a small spade marked with the name
of Bill Williams, which the poor fellow had cut on the handle, as I well
remembered, in one of his many idle hours. This explained to me Bill's
long absence when he went to look for the Indians, his after-anxiety,
and where he had been in the delirium of the fever, filling up that
canvas bag which so fatally deceived the captain and his brother. The
last I heard of these worthies was, that they had gone to the diggings in
Australia; and I never see gold in any shape without a recollection of
their disappointment, and my own experiences in California.

HYGIENIC CHANGE OF AIR.
The age of hygiene is rapidly approaching, when the exhibition of
drugs will be the exception instead of the rule in medical treatment. For
this reason, the effect of climate on disease is rising into a subject of
first-rate importance, and, no longer a prejudice or a tradition, submits
to the investigations of science. The chief recent writers on what we
already presume to call climatology, are Sir James Clark in England,
Schouw in Sweden, and