CALIFORNIAN SAYINGS AND DOINGS. (BY A DISBANDED VOLUNTEER.)

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 473, 16 February 1850, Page 4

CALIFORNIAN SAYINGS AND DOINGS. (BY A DISBANDED VOLUNTEER.)

Marridgeable females is remarkable scarce on the Sarah Nevady, but the fellers bein' continually at work with their cradles has no time to think of the .pettycots^ ' Gold is very plenty, and is the.occashunof much guilt — the

I major part of the fortynit miner* bein' shot j and rifled. lam digging, myself, in the bid of Feather river, which is as fall of gold as a quilt of cotton. Society is mixed. The Sandwiches has mustard - strong, and so has the Polly Nesbuns. Also the Chinese is beginning to come in ; but the boys don't like their long tails, nor the way their eye* is apt in their heads. They're a proud, lazy, sheep-ish-looking set, and unless they mind their peas and queus they'll get a lamming. Why can't they use tobacco and work for their betters and wushup God like Christians, instead of chawing their infarnal opium and loafing about wushuping idles? There's quite a number here, too, from the Society Islandf. Nice society they have there, I guess. There isn't • pettycot nor a pair o' breeches in the hull crowd, and they're all iled up as if they was afraid o' rusting. Soap-fat and stale goose grease is a partutne to the sniff obe gets on the leeward, side o' one on 'em. Then there's Irish and Scotch and John Bulls and niggers and yallerbellies, — so, as stated aforesaid, the society is a mixture, and no mistake. The nateral featers of the sile is sand and rocks. In the sand the gold is generally sought for near the current, and in the rocks we look for it in a vein. There is one kind of deposit they call a pocket. The pockets is generally found in the nateral breeches of the mountain, and can only be dug into with a pick. The miners who work these deposits are known as the pick- pocket gangs. In the sand the preshus mettle is found in grains and gobs. Some aay that the gobs is not the real stuff, and that nobody can tell what's what until the essayer has crucified it; others say that proosic acid will tell the story. Not being a kimmist or an essayist, I cannot decide. Our lieutenant says that it's necessary to have a flux in order to test what is dug from the earth's bowels. If that's all, there's hundreds at the diggings as is competent, for diarree is very prevalunt. The principal quadrupeds is prairie-dogs, turkey-buzzards, and centipedes. The climate is pretty healthy in the mountains, but we suffer with ague in the wilderness. Gold is procured in various ways. Some speckylaters has done well by hiring gangs of Indians to dig, and shooting 'em as soon as they'd got enough to make it worth while. I've got a purty smart chance that way, and intend to boat it down the Sackrymento to San Francisco, where you can always find a sale for your oar. Prigging and murder is punished with death when any of the boys be the sufferers, but we don't take no complaints from furriners, Mexicans, and Injuns. A grapevine haltar, .and a maple limb, is the ushal method of ezekushun. The turkey-buzzard, which is a bird of wonderful instink, and is parshal to cold vittals, sits on the adjining trees until the vital spark has fled, when they come in a body round the corpse, and carry off the carrion with their great talents. Funerals is done up quite rough here.. When a digger dies, bis mate takes his close (which is generally siled), his pick, his shovel, and his gold, and then holes him. A few of the deceased leaves wills behind 'em, but they mostly die detested. We have several coalporters out here wilt tracks about everlasting fires, which is tantalizing, as fuel is scarce and the nights cold. Some mishunaries has also been out here distribbitting bibles, and many of the boys are so smartly exercised about the Golden Calf that it's thought we'll have a great revival shortly. The tracks is principally used for wadding. A minister arrived here last Sunday, and told us in his sermon, with tears in his eyes, that we could not serve God and Mammon ; but we found him next .day out in the placer, with a shovel in his hand, praying for luck before be commenced digging. For several days past the hull country lias been one .sheet of snow, and, as blanket* is scarce, and there is no getting the ,valley.of * tester from the beds of gold at present, I shall leave to-morrow for San Francisco. Whole stacks of ready-made housen have come out there from the States, I understand. At Extemporaneous Hall, in the grand plaza, board is only an ounce a-week, and brandy and other necessaries of life in proportion. I shall send this by a Government express, which is to start .on Christmas-day. It will soon be broiling weather again, when I shall .return to the ; diggings. My ne,xt slice will jbe, from the American Fork.-r-New York Sunday Times.