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Inter Pocala & History of California (Various Pages) (33 pages)
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Page: of 33
440 SOME INDIAN EPISODES. ease ON INDIANS. 441
wo far beyond its value. We left them to their enjoyment, and proceeded on.”
Says one who visited the Stanislaus in October
1848 of some natives he saw at work in that vicinity:
“On the plain we fell in with the camp of Mr Murphy, who invited us into his tent, and set before us
pil ahmenta that would have graced a scene less wild
than this. His tent is pitched in the midst of a
small tribe of wild Indians who gather gold for him,
and receive in return provisions and blankets. He
knocks down two bullocks a day to furnish them with
meat. ‘Though never before within the wake of civilization, they respect his person and property. This,
however, is to be ascribed in part to the fact that he
has married the daughter of the chief—a young
woman of many personal attractions, and full of that
warm wild love which makes her the Haidee of the
woods. She is the queen of the tribe, and walks
among them with the air of one on whom authority
sits as a native grace—a charm which all feel, and of
which she seems the least conscious.”
exhibited to us a lump of apparently pure gold, which
I should judge weighed at least six or seven ounces
We all examined it closely and with open admiration.
Whether it was a craving of avarice that seized my
heart, or because I admired the specimen as one of
the finest I had seen, I will not pretend to
determine; but, as it was, I felt a strong de©
sire to possess the piece. I suppose my feelings were
legible in my countenance, for the old Indian looked
knowingly into my eyes, and then, after a few words
in his own language with his squaw, he took the geld
in his hand and proffered it to me, taking hold, at the .
same time, of a bright scarlet sash which I wore
around my waist, thus evidently offering a trade. My
sash was a fine one, and though worth by no means
the intrinsic value of the gold, would perhaps have
sold for much more in that region, for the Indians —
had been known to gratify their fancies at much more
exorbitant prices: it was not this, however, that
made me hesitate, but rather that it seemed like speculating upon the ignorance of the savage. ‘Take it,
Harry,’ said Charley to me, ‘I do not like to impose on the old fellow, Charley,’ said I. ‘Pooh, approaches the grotesque, Sutter thus describes his
In a melancholy strain, which, coming from him.
experiences in mining withthe natives: ‘Even the
some less scrupulous person will sell him a few yards
of printed calico for it; so it amounts to the same .
thing in the end.’ Doubtless the Indian thought
that our hesitation arose from a desire to enhance my
demand for the sash, for he held a few minutes longer
consultation with his squaw, and then commenced undoing his pouch, as if he intended to offer an additional
price. I shook my head, however, to indicate ‘that
he should stop, and undoing the sash I gave it in ex-change for the gold. Certainly vanity .is a sweet —
morsel to the human heart; even the habitual stoicism
of the savage yields to its magic influence. No sooner
had the old man obtained possession of the coveted
treasure, than both his wife and son gathered around ©
him, forgetting entirely their work in extravagant
admiration of the gaudy plaything they had purchased ©
Indians had no more patience to work alone, in harvesting and threshing my large wheat crop out, as
the white men had all left, and other Indians had
been engaged by some white men to work for them,
and they commenced to have some gold for which
they were buying all kinds of articles at enormous
prices in the stores; which when my Indians saw
this, they wished very much to go to the mountains
and dig gold. At last’ I consented, got a number cf
wagons ready, loaded them with provisions and goods
of all kinds, employed a clerk, and left with about.
one hundred Indians, and about fifty Kanakas who
had joined those I brought with me from the Islands.
The first camp was about ten miles above Mormon
“Island, on the south fork of the American river. In.