FRIDAY, OCT. 20. I threw myself into my saddle at an early hour this morning, and started for a cañada, about ten miles distant. The foot-trail which I followed, lay over several sharp ridges to the quick waves of the Stanislaus, and then up a steep mountain spur. I was obliged to dismount, draw myself up by the bushes, and trust to the fidelity of my horse to follow. At last we gained the summit, but it was only to gaze down a wild precipitous descent, where the cliffs hung in toppling terror. A vein of white quartz runs along the ridge, like a line of unmelted snow, with here and there spangles of gold glittering in the sun. I had no implement with me but my hunting-knife, and vainly broke the point of that. I tried one of my pistols; the bullet knocked out the gold-drop, but jewel and lead went over the steep verge together. I let myself down by the bushes, blessing every lythe limb and steadfast root, while my horse, more sagacious, fetched a circuit, and reached the plain before me. Ascending another ridge, the ravine, which had induced this adventure, lay in jagged wildness beneath. It was in uproarious life; an elk had been shot; and the miners were feasting on its fat ribs. The repast was hardly over, when the monté table, with its piles of gold, glimmered in the shade. It was the great camp of the Sonoranians, and hundreds were crowding around to reach the bank, and deposit their treasures on the turn of a card. They seemed to play for the excitement, and often doubled their stakes whether they won or lost. They apparently connect no moral obliquity with the game; one of them, who sleeps near my camping-tree, will kneel by the half hour on the sharp rock in his Ave Marias, while the keen night-wind cuts his scarce clad frame, then rise and stake his last dollar at monté. At the break of day he is on his knees again, and his prayer trembles up with the first trill of the waking birds. It was in this ravine that a few weeks since the largest lump of gold found in California was discovered. It weighs twenty-three pounds, is nearly pure, and cubic in its form. Its discovery shook the whole mines; the shout of the _eureka_ swelled on the wind like the cheer of seamen when the pharos breaks through a stormy night. I waved my adieu to the miners, and fetching a bold circuit to the east, reached at night-fall my camping-tree.