We arrived at Nevada after a day and a half of very muddy traveling, but the weather was bright and clear, and seemed to be a renewal of the dry season. It did not last long, however, for a heavy snowstorm soon set in, and it continued snowing, raining, and freezing for about three weeks,--the snow lying on the ground all the time, to the depth of three or four feet. The continuance of such weather rendered the roads so impracticable as to cut off all supplies from Marysville or Sacramento, and accordingly prices of provisions of all kinds rose enormously. The miners could not work with so much snow on the ground, and altogether there was a prospect of hard times. Flour was exceedingly high even in San Francisco, several capitalists having entered into a flour-monopoly speculation, buying up every cargo as it arrived, and so keeping up the price. In Nevada it was sold at a dollar a pound, and in other places farther up in the mountains it was doled out, as long as the stock lasted, at three or four times that price. In many parts the people were reduced to the utmost distress from the scarcity of food, and the impossibility of obtaining any fresh supplies. At Downieville, the few men who had remained there were living on barley, a small stock of which was fortunately kept there as mule-feed. Several men perished in the snow in trying to make their escape from distant camps in the mountains; two or three lost their lives near the ranch of my friend the Italian hurdy-gurdy player, while carrying flour down to their camps on the river; and in some places people saved themselves from starvation by eating dogs and mules. Men kept pouring into Nevada from all quarters, starved out of their own camps, and all bearing the same tale of starvation and distress, and glad to get to a place where food was to be had. The town, being a sort of harbor of refuge for miners in remote diggings, became very full; and as no work could be done in such weather, the population had nothing to do but to amuse themselves the best way they could. A theatrical company was performing nightly to crowded houses; the gambling saloons were kept in full blast; and in fact, every day was like a Sunday, from the number of men one saw idling about, playing cards, and gambling.