"I walked on until I reached the trading-post of Mr. Anderson, formerly our interpreter in the Lower Country, whom I felt delighted to meet with again. His shed was situated in one of the dampest parts of the mine, and consisted of a few upright poles, traversed by cross-pieces, and covered in with raw hides and leaves, but yet much exposed at the sides to the wind and the weather. He had a few barrels of flour and biscuit, which he retailed at two dollars a pound; for he made no difference between the price of the raw and the prepared material. The flour would go further, it was true; but then the biscuit required no cooking on the part of the miner, whose time was literally money, and whose interest therefore it was to economize it in every possible manner. He also sold unprepared coffee and sugar at six Yankee shillings a pound; dried beef at one dollar and a half; and pork, which was regarded as a great delicacy here, at two dollars for the same weight. The various articles of which his stock-in-trade consisted he had brought all the way from Monterey at considerable labor and expense; but, by the exercise of extraordinary tact, perseverance, and industry, he had succeeded in establishing a flourishing business. "I discovered, however, that he possessed another resource--by which his gains were marvellously increased--in the services of seven or eight Indians, whom he kept constantly at work, in the rear of his shed, digging gold, and whose labor he remunerated with provisions, and occasional presents of articles of trifling value to him, but highly esteemed by the Indians. They were watched by an American overseer, who was employed by him, to assist in the general business, particularly in slaughtering; for, as beef was scarce, he used to send his man in quest of cows and oxen; which he killed, cut up, salted and dried, in his shed, and watching the most favorable moment for the operation--namely, when meat could not be procured at the 'diggins'--never failed to realize his own price for it.