I received several invitations to dinner, but declined the pleasure, preferring to be a spectator. The rice looked well enough, and the rest of their dishes were no doubt very clean, but they had a very dubious appearance, and were far from suggesting the idea of being good to eat. In the store I found the storekeeper lying asleep on a mat. He was a sleek dirty-looking object, like a fat pig with the hair scalded off, his head being all close shaved excepting the pigtail. His opium-pipe lay in his hand, and the lamp still burned beside him, so I supposed he was already in the seventh heaven. The store was like other stores in the mines, inasmuch as it contained a higgledy-piggledy collection of provisions and clothing, but everything was Chinese excepting the boots. These are the only articles of barbarian costume which the Chinaman adopts, and he always wears them of an enormous size, on a scale commensurate with the ample capacity of his other garments. The next place I visited was Wamba’s Bar, some miles lower down the river; and from here I intended returning to Nevada, as the season was far advanced, and fine weather could no longer be depended upon. The very day, however, on which I was to start, the rain commenced, and came down in such torrents that I postponed my departure. It continued to rain heavily for several days, and I had no choice but to remain where I was, as the river rose rapidly to such a height as to be perfectly impassable. It was now about eighty yards wide, and rushed past in a raging torrent, the waves rolling several feet high. Some of the miners up above, trusting to a longer continuance of the dry season, had not removed their flumes from the river, and these it was now carrying down, all broken up into fragments, along with logs and whole pine trees, which occasionally, as they got foul of other objects, reared straight up out of the water. It was a grand sight; the river seemed as if it had suddenly arisen to assert its independence, and take vengeance for all the restraints which had been placed upon it, by demolishing flumes, dams, and bridges, and carrying off everything within its reach.