A very few days after I left San Andres, a man was lynched for a robbery committed very much in the same manner. But if stringent measures were wanted in one part of the country more than another, it was in such flimsy canvas towns as these two places, where there was such a population of worthless Mexican _canaille_, who were too lazy to work for an honest livelihood. I went on in a few days to Angel’s Camp, a village some miles farther south, composed of well-built wooden houses, and altogether a more respectable and civilized-looking place than San Andres. The inhabitants were nearly all Americans, which no doubt accounted for the circumstance. While walking round the diggings in the afternoon, I came upon a Chinese camp in a gulch near the village. About a hundred Chinamen had here pitched their tents on a rocky eminence by the side of their diggings. When I passed they were at dinner or supper, and had all the curious little pots and pans and other “fixins” which I had seen in every Chinese camp, and were eating the same dubious-looking articles which excite in the mind of an outside barbarian a certain degree of curiosity to know what they are composed of, but not the slightest desire to gratify it by the sense of taste. I was very hospitably asked to partake of the good things, which I declined; but as I would not eat, they insisted on my drinking, and poured me out a pannikin full of brandy, which they seemed rather surprised I did not empty. They also gave me some of their cigaritas, the tobacco of which is aromatic, and very pleasant to smoke, though wrapped up in too much paper. The Chinese invariably treated in the same hospitable manner any one who visited their camps, and seemed rather pleased than otherwise at the interest and curiosity excited by their domestic arrangements. In the evening, a ball took place at the hotel I was staying at, where, though none of the fair sex were present, dancing was kept up with great spirit for several hours. For music the company were indebted to two amateurs, one of whom played the fiddle and the other the flute. It is customary in the mines for the fiddler to take the responsibility of keeping the dancers all right. He goes through the dance orally, and at the proper intervals his voice is heard above the music and the conversation, shouting loudly his directions to the dancers, “Lady’s chain,” “Set to your partner,” with other dancing-school words of command; and after all the legitimate figures of the dance had been performed, out of consideration for the thirsty appetites of the dancers, and for the good of the house, he always announced, in a louder voice than usual, the supplementary finale of “Promenade to the bar, and treat your partners.” This injunction, as may be supposed, was most rigorously obeyed, and the “ladies,” after their fatigues, tossed off their cocktails and lighted their pipes just as in more polished circles they eat ice-creams and sip lemonade.