bought a rocker and shovel, pick-axe and spade, with two tin pans, and set to work. I dug out the earth, another carried it, and a third washed it in the rocker. Our success was tolerable; but it was many days before we got enough to pay for the articles we had purchased, and our provisions. In the meantime, what scenes of wretchedness, misery, dissipation, and violence, did I behold! In every direction men were dying of fever and dysentery. At night the gambling booths were filled with those who rapidly got rid of the earnings of many days. I was witness, too, of an encounter between two large parties of diggers. One party had encroached on the ground prepared by the other, and refused to quit it. Bowie-knives, and pick-axes, and hatchets, rifles and pistols, were instantly brought into play. A sanguinary encounter ensued. Numbers fell on both sides; at last one party turned and fled. I visited the scene of the strife soon after. A dozen or more human beings lay on the ground dead, or dying--arms cut off--pierced through and through with knives--skulls fractured with spades and pick-axes, and many shot to death. The dying had been left to die alone without aid or pity, while their companions returned to their gold digging. Often and often I sickened at the sights I beheld, but still I continued at the work. I was compelled to continue at it. I had given up everything for it. I was like a slave chained to it by the leg. Gladly would I have gone back to my steady occupation and quiet life, surrounded by those I respected and loved. I have only partly described the hardships we endured. We had famine, and cold, and rain. Often we were without fuel, our clothing was ragged and insufficient, and sickness in every form came among us. Besides desperate quarrels among the diggers, the Indians came down upon us--fierce, sanguinary warriors, eager for our scalps. Their vengeance had been excited by aggressions made on them by the whites. We could scarcely leave the camp without risking an attack from them. Many diggers became their victims. Such was our life for months. At length my companions and I, by unexpected good fortune, saved a sufficient amount of gold dust to enable us to return to San Francisco. Steady work at home would have enabled me to lay by nearly as much, while my health and spirits would not have been broken as they now are. We kept together to defend each other. Many diggers on their way to the city, after labouring for years, have been robbed and murdered. My companions spent most of their hard won wealth, and returned to the diggings, where, one after the other, they fell victims to disease, or the knives of assassins. I had had enough of the life, and my knowledge of business enabled me to procure a situation in a merchant's office in this place, where, by employing the sum I had scraped together, and by stript attention to business, I have realised