SIX MONTHS IN THE GOLD MINES: FROM A JOURNAL OF Three Years’ Residence IN UPPER AND LOWER CALIFORNIA. 1847-8-9. BY E. GOULD BUFFUM, LIEUTENANT FIRST REGIMENT NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS. PHILADELPHIA: LEA AND BLANCHARD. 1850. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, BY LEA AND BLANCHARD, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PHILADELPHIA: C. SHERMAN, PRINTER. TO JOHN CHARLES FRÉMONT, THE UNITED STATES SENATOR FIRST CHOSEN TO REPRESENT THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA: THE HISTORY OF WHOSE INVALUABLE PIONEER LABOURS WILL ENDURE AS LONG AS THE MOUNTAINS, VALLEYS, AND PLAINS WHICH HIS COURAGE AND INDOMITABLE ENTERPRISE EXPLORED, AND HIS GENIUS HAS ILLUSTRATED, This Memorial of Adventure, BY PERMISSION, IS MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY THE AUTHOR. PUBLISHERS’ NOTICE. The pages of this work, in consequence of the public interest in all that appertains to California, have been hurried through the press, without the revision expected by the author; there may be, therefore, some slight errors detected through the pages. The writer of the work, formerly connected intimately with the New York press, has been a resident and explorer of California for more than three years, and still remains there. The proof sheets could not, therefore, well be submitted to his revision. Philadelphia, May, 1850. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION, 13 CHAPTER I. Departure for the Mines--The Victims--Adventures of a Night on San Francisco Bay--Voyage in a Launch--My Companion Higgins--Resolutions of the Passengers--The Bay of San Pablo--The Straits of Carquinez--Benicia--The Bay of Suisun--The Sacramento--Beautiful Scenery--Montezuma--Monte Diablo--Camp on Shore--Hala-chum-muck--Firing the Woods--Schwartz’s Rancho--A “manifest destiny” Man--Involuntary Baptism--Sacramento City--The Embarcadero, 25 CHAPTER II.