"Notwithstanding the success which seemed to attend the labors of the Sonomeans, I subsequently discovered that the entire quantity of gold thus painfully obtained, disappeared at the gambling-stalls. They were generally clad most wretchedly, many of them wearing nothing more than a dirty shirt, a pair of light pantaloons, and the wide _sombrero_ peculiar to the inhabitants of this country and Mexico. Some few sported a _serapa_, but they were men of superior native rank, of which this garment is a distinctive characteristic.
"Continuing my route up the ravine, I met a man named Corrigan, galloping along with two fine horses, one of which he was leading. He stopped as soon as he recognized me, and we were soon engaged in a very interesting conversation respecting the doings at the 'diggins.' The substance of his information was, that he had made a great deal of money at the mines by digging, but infinitely more by speculation. He thought of buying a _ranché_, marrying, and settling down. He was then going to seek for pasture for his horses; and, bidding me a hasty good-bye, galloped off, and soon disappeared.
"As I advanced, the ground became drier and more sandy, rock and slate of various kinds abounding; some quite soft and friable, yielding readily to the pickaxe or the crowbar; and, in other places, so hard as to resist the utmost strength of the miners. Several of the diggers were perseveringly exploring the localities where the rotten sorts of slate were found in the largest quantities, and I saw them pick out a good deal of gold with their jack-knives. Their principal aim was to discover what they termed 'a pocket,' which is nothing more than a crevice between the blocks of slate, into which a deposit of gold has been washed by the heavy rains from the higher districts, and which, soon accumulating, swell into rapid torrents, which rush down these ravines with extraordinary swiftness and force, sweeping every thing before them.
"There did not appear to be many mining parties at the Stanislaus at this particular period, for the encampments were generally from two to five miles apart, the space between them increasing the higher you advanced towards the mountains, to the foot of which the ravine extended--altogether, a distance of many miles. The lower part of the mine, I concluded from this fact, to be by far the richer, simply from the circumstance I have mentioned; richer, comparatively, because here the deposits of gold are more easily found and extracted; not richer, in reality, as the metal must exist in immense quantities in the upper regions, from which it is washed down by the rains and floods into the lower districts. The virgin deposit would, doubtless, be difficult to come at; but, if sought after at all, that it is to be sought in the mountains and high lands, I feel persuaded.