It was in this Sacramento Valley, just referred to, that a deal of the most lucrative¹ of the early gold mining was done, and you may still see, in places, its grassy² slopes and levels torn and guttered³ and disfigured by the avaricious⁴ spoilers of fifteen and twenty years ago. You may see such disfigurements far and wide over California—and in some such places, where only meadows and forests are visible—not a living creature, not a house, no stick or stone or remnant of a ruin, and not a sound, not even a whisper to disturb the Sabbath stillness—you will find it hard to believe that there stood at one time a fiercely-flourishing little city, of two thousand or three thousand souls, with its newspaper, fire company, brass⁵ band, volunteer militia⁶, bank, hotels, noisy Fourth of July processions and speeches, gambling⁷ hells crammed⁸ with tobacco smoke, profanity, and rough-bearded men of all nations and colors, with tables heaped with gold dust sufficient for the revenues of a German principality—streets crowded and rife⁹ with business—town lots worth four hundred dollars a front foot—labor, laughter, music, dancing, swearing, fighting, shooting, stabbing—a bloody¹⁰ inquest and a man for breakfast every morning—everything that delights and adorns¹¹ existence—all the appointments and appurtenances of a thriving and prosperous and

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