The most populous part of the mines, however, was in the high mountain-land between the rivers, and here the whole country had been ransacked, every flat and ravine had been prospected; and wherever extensive diggings had been found, towns and villages had sprung up. Young as California was, it was in one respect older than its parent country, for life was so fast that already it could show ruins and deserted villages. In out-of-the-way places one met with cabins fallen into disrepair, which the proprietors had abandoned to locate themselves elsewhere; and even villages of thirty or forty shanties were to be seen deserted and desolate, where the diggings had not proved so productive as the original founders had anticipated. Labor, however, was not exclusively devoted to mining operations. Roads had in many parts been cut in the sides of the mountains, bridges had been built, and innumerable saw-mills, most of them driven by steam power, were in full operation, many of them having been erected in anticipation of a demand for lumber, and before any population existed around them. Every little valley in the mountains where the soil was at all fit for cultivation was already fenced in, and producing crops of barley or oats; and canals, in some cases forty or fifty miles long, were in course of construction, to bring the waters of the rivers to the mountain-tops, to diggings which were otherwise unavailable. Life for the most part was hard enough certainly, but every village was a little city of itself, where one could live in comparative luxury. Even Downieville had its theater and concerts, its billiard-rooms and saloons of all sorts, a daily paper, warm baths, and restaurants where men in red flannel shirts, with bare arms, spread a napkin over their muddy knees, and studied the bill of fare for half an hour before they could make up their minds what to order for dinner. I was sitting on a rock by the side of the river one day sketching, when I became aware that a most ragamuffinish individual was looking over my shoulder. He was certainly, without exception, the most tattered and torn man I ever saw in my life; even his hair and beard gave the idea of rags, which was fully realized by his costume. He was a complete caricature of an old miner, and quite a picture by himself, seen from any point of view.