I think and hope that these attempts of mine to portray the history of the camps on one California gold-bearing river will touch a responsive chord in the hearts of some old Californian, for the life and incident of the bars I describe reflect, in certain respects, the life, history, and incident of hundreds and thousands of places settled in “’49,” and perhaps abandoned by “’60,” which have now no name or place on the later maps of the State. Your genuine old miner likes to revisit the camp where first he dug for gold, in thought if not in person. It was no common affection they entertained for these places. If the “boys” moved away to other diggings, they had always to make a yearly pilgrimage back, so long as the camp lasted. So, yearly from Vallecito, thirty miles distant, used Jake Yager to revisit Swett’s, and he tramped the whole distance, too. What was it that so drew them back? Perhaps the memory of the new and exciting life they experienced from “’49” say till “’58” or “’60,” with its “ups and downs,” its glittering surprises in the shape of “strikes,” its comradeship so soon developed among men who, meeting as strangers, so soon found out each other’s better qualities, its freedom from the restraints of older communities, its honesty and plainness in the expression of opinion, engendered by such freedom; all these thought over and over again during absence brought about that strong desire to see the old Bar again, the scene of so much experience and private history. Then the visitor always met a hearty welcome. He was an old “residenter.” Cabin-owners contended for the pleasure of entertaining him. No wives or families were in the way. Conviviality was uninterrupted.