SATURDAY, OCT. 28. A portion of the party that went in quest of the little Dutchman have found him, and helped him to dig out his new deposit—a sort of assistance for which he can feel no very profound obligation. It was much like that rendered by Prince Hal in the division of the spoils secured by the knight of sack at Gad’s hill. A successful gold-hunter is like the leader of hounds in the chase—the whole pack comes sweeping after, and are sure to be in at the death. No doubling hill, or covert, or stream throws them upon a false scent. I advise all fox-hunters to come here and train their hounds, and throw away their horns. Even his Grace of Wellington, who is still so hotly keen in the chase, that the snows of eighty winters fall from his locks unperceived, might catch some valuable hints in the gold mines of California. MONDAY, OCT. 30. I encountered to-day, in a ravine some three miles distant, among the gold-washers, a woman from San José. She was at work with a large wooden bowl, by the side of a stream. I asked her how long she had been there, and how much gold she averaged a day. She replied, “Three weeks and an ounce.” Her reply reminded me of an anecdote of the late Judge B——, who met a girl returning from market, and asked her, “How deep did you find the stream? what did you get for your butter?” “Up to the knee and nine-pence,” was the reply. Ah! said the judge to himself; she is the girl for me—no words lost there: turned back, proposed, was accepted, and married the next week; and a more happy couple the conjugal bonds never united: the nuptial lamp never waned; its ray was steady and clear to the last. Ye, who paddle off and on for seven years, and are at last perhaps capsized, take a lesson of the judge. That “up to the knee and nine-pence” is worth all the rose letters and melancholy rhymes ever penned. But I am wandering; I did intend to write this journal without an episode, but they will keep forcing themselves in, like the curiosity of the crowd in a family jar, or remembrances of wrong upon a guilty conscience. I know the interest of a journal depends much on the continuity of its thread; but it is the easiest thing in the world to be continuously stupid, and _that_ is my apology for these episodical breaks. If the reader don’t like this reason, then let him look up a better; while I plunge into that o’ershadowed glen, and see if it contains any gold.