Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
Collection: Books and Periodicals
Three Years in California by John D. Borthwick (1857)(LoC) (423 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 423
218 A CALIFORNIA COMPLIMENT.
town. The same company which I had heard in
Nevada were performing in a very comfortable little
theatre—not a very highly decorated house, but laid
out in the orthodox fashion, with boxes, pit, and gallery—and 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 character, and a lady, one
of their party, had won the hearts of all the miners
by singing 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.
Downieville is situated at what is called the Forks
of the Yuba River, and the town itself was frequently