CHAPTER IV.
AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL DURIN'G THE SPRING
OF 1848.
Plutus. I shan't go near that fellow, Jupiter.
Jupiter. How, my good Plutus, not when I bid you?
Plut.u.s. No. He insulted me, turned me out of his house, and scattered me in all directions, — me, the old friend of the family, all but pitched me out of doors, as if I burnt his fingers. What! go back to him, to be thrown to his parasites, and toadies, and harlots? No; send me to those who value the gift, who will make much of me, who honor me, and desire my company, and let all these fools keep house still with Poverty who prefer her to me. Let them get her to give them a spade and an old sheepskin, and go dig for their two-pence a-day, after squandering thousands in gifts to their friends.
Jupiter. Timon will never behave so to you again.
^Lucian.
When at length civilization began to creep into the canons of the Sierra foothills, and the cry of gold was raised, how was answered the mill-race digger's shout ? Tamely enough, at first. Few heeded it, or imagined that it amounted to any more than a thousand other great or small discoveries made since Spaniards began their explorations northward from Mexico. Gold was thinly distributed over wide areas, with richer depos- its at intervals, so that for one great discovery, there were a hundred which were hardly worth attention.
When bags and bottles of it were displayed at Be- nicia, at Sonoma, at San Francisco, and Monterey, the sleepy towns began to rub their eyes, and awake to the fact that here was gold, bright yellow hard gold, and in such quantities as might well and quickly claim their consideration. The quiet of pastoral Cali- fornia was disturbed ; the pulses of the people quick- ened as with one accord they directed their eyes northward. Thence spread the news to Mexico, to Oregon, to the islands of the sea, to the eastern shore of the continent, to South America, and to the conti-
