He gave me an account of his doings since he had been in the mines, from which he did not seem to have had much luck on his side, for most of the money he had made he had lost in buying claims which turned out valueless. He had owned a share in a company which was working a claim on the Yuba, but had sold it for a mere trifle before it was ascertained whether the claim was rich or not, and it was now yielding 150 dollars a day to the man. We crossed the Middle Yuba, a small stream, at Emery’s Bridge, where my friend left me, and I went on alone, having six or seven miles to go to reach my resting-place for the night. I was now in a region of country so mountainous as to be perfectly impassable for wheeled vehicles. All supplies were brought to the various trading posts from Marysville on trains of pack-mules. “Packing,” as it is called, is a large business. A packer has in his train from thirty to fifty mules, and four or five Mexicans to tend them--mule-driving, or “packing,” being one of the few occupations to which Mexicans devote themselves; and at this they certainly do excel. Though generally a lazy, indolent people, it is astonishing what activity and energy they display in an employment which suits their fancy. They drive the mules about twenty-five miles a day; and in camping for the night, they have to select a place where there is water, and where there is also some sort of picking for the mules, which, in the dry season, when every blade of vegetation is burned up, is rather hard to find. I came across a train of about forty mules, under charge of four or five Mexicans, just as they were about to unpack, and make their camp. The spot they chose was a little grassy hollow in the middle of the woods, near which flowed a small stream of beautifully clear water. It was evidently a favorite camping ground, from the numbers of signs of old fires. The mules seemed to know it too, for they all stopped and commenced picking the grass. The Mexicans, who were riding tough little Californian horses, immediately dismounted and began to unpack, working with such vigor that one might have thought they were doing it for a wager.