January 30 Thursday – In Carson City, Sam wrote an account of the trip to Humboldt to his mother [MTL 1: 146-152]. The letter was printed in the Keokuk Gate City on Mar. 6.
My Dear Mother:—
“How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
Far, far from the battle-field’s dreadful array,
With cheerful ease and succulent repast,
Nor ask the sun to lend his streaming ray.”
Bully, isn’t it? I mean the poetry, madam, of course. Doesn’t it make you feel just a little “stuck up” to think that your son is a—Bard? And I have attained to this proud eminence without an effort, almost. You see, madam, my method is very simple and easy—thus: When I wish to write a great poem, I just take a few lines from Tom, Dick and Harry, Shakspeare, and other poets, and by patching them together so as to make them rhyme occasionally, I have accomplished my object. Never mind the sense—sense, madam, has but little to do with poetry. By this wonderful method, any body can be a poet—or a bard—which sounds better, you know.
But I have other things to talk about, now—so, if you please, we will drop the subject of poetry. You wish to know where I am, and where I have been? And, verily, you shall be satisfied. Behold, I am in the middle of the universe—at the centre of gravitation—even Carson City. And I have been to the land that floweth with gold and silver—Humboldt. (Now, do not make any ridiculous attempt, ma, to pronounce the “d,” because you can’t do it, you know.) I went to the Humboldt with Billy C., and Gus., and old Mr. Tillou. With a two-horse wagon, loaded with eighteen hundred pounds of provisions and blankets—necessaries of life—to which the following luxuries were added, viz: Ten pounds of Killikinick, two dogs, Watt’s Hymns, fourteen decks of cards, “Dombey and Son,” a cribbage board, one small keg of lager beer and the “carminia sacrae.”
At first, Billy drove, and we pushed behind the wagon. Not because we were fond of it, ma—Oh, no— but on Bunker’s account. Bunker was the “near” horse, on the larboard side. Named after the Attorney General of this Territory. My horse—you are acquainted with him, by reputation, already—and I am sorry you do not know him personally, ma, for I feel towards him, sometimes, as if he were a blood relation of our family—he is so infernally lazy, you know—my horse, I was going to say—was the “off” horse on the starboard side. But it was on Bunker’s account, principally, that we pushed behind the wagon. For whenever we came to a hard piece of road, that poor, lean, infatuated cuss would fall into a deep reverie about something or other, and stop perfectly still, and it would generally take a vast amount of black-snaking and shoving and profanity to get him started again; and as soon as he was fairly under way, he would take up the thread of his reflections where he left off, and go on thinking, and pondering, and getting himself more and more mixed up and tangled in his subject, until he would get regularly stuck again, and stop to review the question.
And always in the meanest piece of road he could find.
In fact, Ma, that horse had something on his mind, all the way from here to Humboldt; and he had not got rid of it when I left there—for when I departed, I saw him standing, solitary and alone, away up on the highest peak of a mountain, where no horse ever ventured before, with his pensive figure darkly defined against the sky—still thinking about it.
Our dog, Tom, which we borrowed at Chinatown without asking the owner’s permission, was a beautiful hound pup, eight months old. He was a love of a dog, and much addicted to fleas. He always slept with Billy and me. Whenever we selected our camp, and began to cook supper, Tom, aided and abetted by us three boys, immediately commenced laying his plans to steal a portion of the latter; and with our assistance, he generally succeeded in inserting his long, handsome nose into every dish before anybody else. This was wrong, Ma, and we know it—so, to atone for it, we made Mr. Tillou’s dog stand around whenever he attempted any such liberties. And when our jolly supper was swallowed, and the night was on the wane, and we had finished smoking our pipes, and singing songs, and spinning yarns, and telling lies, and quoting scripture, and all that sort of thing, and had begun to look for a soft place on the ground to spread our blankets on, Tom, with immense sagacity, always assisted in the search, and then with becoming modesty, rewarded himself by taking first choice between the blankets. No wonder we loved the dog.
But, Mr. Tillou’s dog, “Curney,” we utterly despised. He was not a long, slender, graceful dog like Tom, but a little mean, white, curly, grinning whelp, no bigger than a cat—with a wretched, envious, snappish, selfish disposition, and a tail like an all-wool capital O, curled immodestly over his back, and apparently wrenched and twisted to its place so tightly that it seemed to lift his hind legs off the ground sometimes. And we made Tom pester him; and bite his tail; and his ears; and stumble over him; and we heaped trouble and humiliation upon the brute to that degree that his life became a burden to him. And Billy, hating the dog, and thirsting for his blood, prophesied that Curney would come to grief. And Gus and I said Amen. And it came to pass according to the words of the prophet. Thus.
On the fifth day out, we left the village of Ragtown, and entered upon the Forty-five mile Desert, where the sand is of unknown depth, and locomotion of every kind is very difficult; where the road is strewn thickly with the skeletons and carcasses of dead beasts of burden, and charred remains of wagons; and chains, and bolts and screws, and gun-barrels, and such things of a like heavy nature as weary, thirsty emigrants, grown desperate, have thrown away, in the grand hope of being able, when less encumbered, to reach water.8 We left Ragtown, Ma, at nine o’clock in the morning, and the moment we began to plow through that horrible sand, Bunker, true to his instincts, fell into a reverie so dense, so profound, that it required all the black-snaking and shoving and profanity at our disposal to keep him on the move five minutes at a time. But we did shove, and whip and blaspheme all day and all night, without stopping to rest or eat, scarcely, (and alas! we had nothing to drink, then.) And long before day-light we struck the Big Alkali Flat—and Curney came to grief; for the poor devil got alkalied—in the seat of honor. You see he got tired, traveling all day and all night, nearly—immensely tired—and sat himself down by the way-side to rest. And lo! the iron entered his soul (poetical figure, Ma.) And when he rose from that fiery seat, he began to turn somersets, and roll over and over and kick up his heels in the most frantic manner, and shriek, and yelp and bark, and make desperate grabs at his tail, which he could not reach on account of his excitement and a tendency to roll over; and he would drag himself over the ground in a sitting posture, (which afforded him small relief, you know,) and then jump up and yelp, and scour away like the wind, and make a circuit of three hundred yards, for all the world as if he were on the Pony Express. And we three weary and worn and thirsty wretches forgot our troubles, and fell upon the ground and laughed until all life and sense passed out of us, and the colic came to our relief and brought us to again, while old Mr. Tillou wiped his spectacles, and put them on, and looked over them, and under them, and around them, in a bewildered way, and “wondered,” every now and then, “what in the h—ll was the matter with Curney.”
We thought,—yea, we fondly hoped, ma,—that Curney’s time had come. But it was otherwise ordained. Mr. Tillou was much exercised on account of his dog’s misery, and, sharing his misery, we recommended a bullet as a speedy remedy, but the old gentleman put his trust in tallow, and Curney became himself again, except that he walked behind the wagon for many hours with humble mien, and tail transformed from a brave all-wool capital O to a limp and all-wool capital J, and gave no sign when Tom bit his ears or stumbled over him.
We took up our abode at Unionville, in Buena Vista Mining District, Humboldt county, after pushing that wagon nearly 200 miles, and taking eleven days to do it in. And we found that the “National” lead there was selling at $50 per foot, and assayed $2,496 per ton at the Mint in San Francisco. And the “Alba Nueva,” “Peru,” “Delirio,” “Congress,” “Independence,” and others, were immensely rich leads. And moreover, having winning ways with us, we could get “feet” enough to make us all rich one of these days. And again that mills would be in operation there by the 1st of June. And in the Star District, O. B. O’Bannon, of Keokuk, was flourishing, and had plenty of “feet,” and in the Santa Clara District, Harroun and Jo. Byers of Memphis, Mo., likewise and ditto. And Billy put up his shingle as Notary Public, and Gus put up his as Probate Judge, and I mounted my horse (in company with the Captain and the Colonel) and journeyed back to Carson, leaving them making preparations for a prospecting tour; and before I can go to Esmeralda and get back to Humboldt, they will have laid, with the certainty of fate, the foundation of their fortunes. It’s a great country, ma.
Now, ma, I could tell you how, on our way back here, the Colonel and the Captain and I got fearfully and desperately lousy; and how I got used to it and didn’t mind it, and slept with the Attorney General, who wasn’t used to it, and did mind it; but I fear my letter is already too long. Therefore—sic transit gloria mundi, e pluribus unum forever! Amen. (Latin, madam—which you don’t understand, you know).
S. L. C. [MTL 1: 146-152; MTPO drop in letters].