It is quite a treat, after a hard day’s work,
to go at nightfall to one of these fandangos.
The merry notes of the guitar and the violin announce
them to all comers; and a motley enough looking crowd,
every member of which is puffing away at a cigar,
forms are applauding circle round the dancers, who
smoke like the rest. One cannot help being struck
by the picturesque costumes and graceful motions of
the performers, who appear to dance not only with
their legs, but with all their hearts and souls.
Lacosse is a particular admirer of these fandangos,
and he very frequently takes a part in them himself.
During the interval between the dances, coffee is
consumed by the senoras, and coffee with something,
stronger by the senors; so that, as the, night advances,
the merriment gets, if not “fast and furious,”
at least animated and imposing.
25th June, Sunday.—We have all of
us, given over working on Sundays, as we found the
toil on six successive days quite hard enough.
Last week we had rather indifferent success, having
realized only nineteen ounces of gold, barely three
ounces a man. The dust is weighed out and distributed
every evening, and each man carries his portion about
his person. Jose, who has amassed a tolerable
quantity by working in his spare time, is constantly
feeling to see whether his stock is safe. He
weighs it two or three times a-day, to ascertain, I
suppose, whether it exhausts itself by insensible
perspiration, or other means, and invokes, by turns,
every saint in the calendar—his patron-saint,
Joseph, in particular—and all his old heathenish
spirits, to keep his treasure safe. In accordance
with a vow he made before he started from Monterey,
he has set apart one-fourth of his treasure for the
Big Woman, as he calls the Virgin Mary—in
contradistinction to the Great Spirit, I imagine;
but I fancy her stock of gold decreases every day,
and that Jose doesn’t play her fair.
We had a great deal of serious conversation this afternoon
upon the propriety of moving farther up the river,
and trying some of the higher washings; for our last
week’s labour was a terribly poor yield.
We remembered Captain Sutter’s account of how
Mr. Marshall had first discovered the gold in the
vicinity of his mill, and how plentiful it seemed
to lie there. Besides, the diggings are getting
overcrowded; the consequence of which is, that we
have had several of our pans and baskets stolen.
We therefore decided that, if we could sell our cradles
to advantage—and there is some likelihood
of this, for there is not a carpenter left all through
these diggings to make others for the constant new-comers—to
move higher up the Fork, and try our fortune at a
less crowded spot. There is one thing that I think
I shall regret leaving myself, and that is, the fandango
and the two or three pretty senoritas one has been
in the habit of meeting at it almost every night.
