DIVIDENDS.

that nothing can be seen short of a few weeks or a few months or a few years! If I undertake to look at a potatoe-patch or a cabbagegarden, it is urgently represented that I can "form no conception how potatoes and cabbages grow in this section" without a month's careful examination of the roots or fibres. I am occasionally so bothered in this way as to feel tempted to offer rather a rude reply, viz.: that one who makes it his business to observe things around him can, with an ordinary share of penetration and some common-sense, see as much in a day as many people who live on the spot see in a lifetime. It might be effrontery to tell these Virginians, upon so brief an inspection, that I knew more of their city and its resources than they did; but I would even venture something on that point.

"You did us great injury," said they, "by so casual a glance at our mines. For example, you cast contempt upon the whole Comstock lead by representing its dips, spurs, and angles

his blankets on his back; endures the most ex-in a sort of burlesque map resembling a bunch traordinary privations; catches the rheumatism, of straw." tic-douloureux, and dysentery; invests in the Alas, poor human nature! These very parDead Broke; fails to make an agency pay; drags ties, who complained of my map because it rehis weary limbs back again, and writes out what sembled a bunch of stray-illustrating the ashe conceives to be a truthful account of his ex-sertion that every body's dips, spurs, and angles periences, and is then complimented upon having made a capital hit, perpetrated a most admirable burlesque, worthy the distinguished humorists of the age! It was a sorry joke for me. I was terribly in earnest about it, at all events.

66

"You will admit," said these excellent friends, "that the richness of this country surpasses any thing ever known in the world before; that you were altogether mistaken about the silver leads ?" 'No, gentlemen," was my answer, "I can't admit any such thing. I said the Comstock was wonderfully rich, so far as any body could judge from the specimens of ore taken out; but I thought there was considerable doubt as to where the most valuable running feet might run. That doubt is not yet removed from my mind. I advised people not to invest in the ten thousand outside leads that were then in existence. Where are your Flowery Diggings now? What is your Desert worth per running foot? How much will you give me for my Scandalous Wretch, or Bobtail Horse, or Root Hog or Die-all firstclass leads in the neighborhood of the Devil's Gate? Show me a single lead that pays assessments, or pays any thing at all, or is likely ever to pay fifty cents per acre, outside of the main lead in Gold Hill and Virginia City; show me how many of your best mines pay dividends, and I will take back all I said."

At this there was a general look of blankness, as if the facts had not occurred to them before in that point of view.

"But you'll admit that a man can't see much of a mineral district in a few days. You ought to spend a week or two in each mine; then you would be prepared to say something about it."

Strange, isn't it, that people will never get over this idea! Wherever I travel I am told

were running into every body else's-were at that very moment, and doubtless are yet, at daggers' points of litigation with other parties who had run into their dips, spurs, and angles. I don't know of a mine on the Comstock which does not infringe upon the alleged rights of some other mine. The results of an actual survey are precisely the same as those produced by a bundle of straw well inked and pressed upon a sheet of paper. To call a map so accurately truthful as mine a burlesque calculated to throw contempt upon the subject, manifests a degree

9

of visual obliquity, if not moral assurance, ab- | wonderful progress of improvement, which they solutely refreshing.

The citizens of Virginia, like the citizens of Timbuctoo in Africa and Reykjavik in Iceland, are enthusiastic admirers of their own place of residence. Not satisfied with the praise usually bestowed upon the city by every stranger who enters it and who desires to maintain friendly relations with the inhabitants, they are exacting to a degree bordering on the despotic. A visitor is required to go into ecstasies over the climate, should there chance to occur, during his sojourn, a passably fine day. He is called upon at every turn to do homage to the

CLIMATE OF VIRGINIA CITY.

consider far ahead of any thing ever achieved
by human beings constructed in the usual form.
He is expected to pay the tribute of admiration
to the magnificence of the buildings and the
sumptuous accommodations of the hotels. If
he does not boldly, firmly, and without reserva-
tion, express the opinion that the mines are
richer by a thousand to one than those of Mex-
ico or South America, he is at once set down as
a man whose opinion is worth nothing. Should
a stray bullet whiz by his head and kill some
equally innocent party within a distance of three
lieve that there is as
paces, he is gravely assured and required to be-
much respect paid to
life and limb in Vir-
ginia City as there
is in any city in the
Union. At any hour
of the night, when
the noise around
his lodgings would
shame Bedlam, his
attention is exult-
ingly directed to the
elysian repose of this
delectable metropo-
lis.

Passing those dens of infamy that abound on every street, he is invited, with an assurance almost incredible, to render homage to the exalted condition of public morals. In full view of the most barren, blasted, and horribly desolate country that perhaps the light of heaven ever shone upon, he is appealed to, as a lover of nature, to admire the fertility of the soil, the luxuriance of the vegetation, and the exquisite beauty of Surthe scenery. rounded by an enthusiastic dozen of

citizens, most of whom are afflicted with sore throat, mountain fever, erysipelas, bleeding of the nose, shortness of breath, heart disease, diarrhea, and loss of appetite, he is urged to observe the remarkable salubrity of the climate, y and to disabuse his

square. The walls were constructed of boards fancifully decorated with paper, and afforded this facility to a lodger-that he could hear all that was going on in the adjacent rooms. The partitions might deceive the eye, but the ear received the full benefit of the various oaths, ejaculations, conversations, and perambulations in which his neighbors indulged. As for the bed, I don't know how long it had been in use, or what race of people had hitherto slept in it, but the sheets and blankets seemed to be sadly dis

from an Indian wigwam to a Parisian hotel, from an African palm-tree to an Arctic snowbank. I have slept in the same bed with two donkeys, a camel, half a dozen Arabs, several goats, and a horse. I have slept on beds alive with snakes, lizards, scorpions, centipeds, bugs, and fleas-beds in which men stricken with the plague had died horrible deaths-beds that might reasonably be suspected of small-pox, measles, and Asiatic cholera. I have slept in beds of rivers and beds of sand, and on the bare bed rock. Standing, sitting, lying down, doub-colored by age-or lack of soap and water. It led up, and hanging over; twisted, punched, would be safe to say washing was not considjammed, and elbowed by drunken men; snored ered a paying investment by the managers of at in the cars; sat upon and smothered by the this establishment. Having been over twentynightmare; burnt by fires, rained upon, snowed four hours without sleep or rest I made an atupon, and bitten by frost-in all these positions, tempt to procure a small supply, but miserably and subject to all these discomforts, I have slept failed in consequence of an interesting conversawith comparative satisfaction. There are pleas- tion carried on in the passage between the chamanter ways of sleeping, to be sure, but there are ber-maids, waiters, and other ladies and gentletimes when any way is a blessing. In respect men respecting the last free fight. From what to the matter of eating I am even less particu- I could gather this was considered the best neighlar. Frogs, horse-leeches, snails, and grass-borhood in the city for free fights. Within the hoppers are luxuries to what I have eaten. It past two weeks three or four men had been shot, has pleased Providence to favor me with appe- stabbed, or maimed close by the door. “Oh, tites and tastes appropriate to a great variety it's a lively place, you bet!" said one of the laof circumstances and many conditions of life. dies (the chamber-maid, I think), "an oncomThese facts serve to show that I am not fastidi- mon lively place-reely hexcitin'. I look out ous on the subject of personal accommodations. of the winder every mornin' jist to see how many Perhaps my experience in Virginia was ex- dead men are layin' around. I declare to graceptional; perhaps misfortune was determined cious the bullets flies around here sometimes to try me to the utmost extremity. I endeav- like hailstones!" "An' shure," said a voice ored to find accommodations at a hotel recom- in that rich brogue which can never be mismended as the best in the place, and was shown taken, "it's no wondher the boys shud be killa room over the kitchen stove, in which the in' an' murtherin' themselves forninst the door, thermometer ranged at about 130 to 150 de- whin they're all just like me, dyin' in love wid grees of Fahrenheit. To be lodged and baked yer beauteeful self!" A smart slap and a genat the rate of $2 per night, cash in advance, was eral laugh followed this suggestion. "Git away more than I could stand, so I asked for another wid ye, Dinnis; yer always up to yer mischief! room. There was but one more, and that was As I was sayin', no later than this mornin', I pre-empted by a lodger who might or might not see two men a poppin' away at each other wid come back and claim possession in the middle six-shooters-a big man an' a little man. The of the night. It had no window except one big man he staggered an' fell right under the that opened into the passage, and the bed was winder, wid his head on the curb-stone, an' his so arranged that every other lodger in the house legs a stickin' right up in the air. He was all could take a passing observation of the sleeper over blood, and when the boys picked him up he and enjoy his style of sleeping. Nay, it was was dead as a brickbat. "Tother chap he run not beyond the resources of the photographic into a saloon. You better b'leeve this is a lively art to secure his negative and print his likeness neighborhood. I tell you hailstones is nothink for general distribution. It was bad enough to to the way the bullets flies around.” “That's be smothered for want of light and air; but I so," chimes in another female voice; "I see myhad no idea of paying $2 a night for the poor self, with my own eyes, Jack's corpse an' two privilege of showing people how I looked with more carried away in the last month. If I'd a my eyes shut, and possibly my mouth open. had a six-shooter then you bet they'd a carried A man may have an attack of nightmare, his away the fellow that nipped Jack!" countenance may be distorted by horrible dreams; he may laugh immoderately at a very bad pun made in his sleep-in all which conditions of body and mind he doubtless presents an interesting spectacle to the critical eyes of a stranger, but he doesn't like to wake up suddenly and be caught in the act.

Now taking into view the picturesque spectacle that a few dead men dabbled in blood must present to the eye on a fine morning, and the chances of a miscellaneous ball carrying away the top of one's cranium, or penetrating the thin board wall and ranging upward through his body as he lies in bed, I considered it best The next hotel to which I was recommended to seek a more secluded neighborhood, where was eligibly located on a street composed prin- the scenery was of a less stimulating character cipally of grog-shops and gambling-houses. I and the hail-storms not quite so heavy. By the was favored with a front-room about eight feet kind aid of a friend I secured comparatively

agreeable quarters in a private lodging-house

I could scarcely credit this, if it were not that a kept by a widow lady. The rooms were good friend of mine, who visited Reese River last sumand the beds clean, and the price not extrava-mer, related some experiences of a corroborative gant for this locality-$12 a week without board. character. Unable to secure lodgings elsewhere, So much for the famous hotels of Virginia. he undertook to find accommodations in a vaIf there are any better, neither myself, nor some cant sheep corral. The proprietor happening to fellow-travelers who told me their experiences, come home about midnight found him spread out succeeded in finding them. The concurrent under the lee of the fence. "Look-a-here, strantestimony was that they are dirty, ill-kept, badly ger!" said he, gruffly, "that's all well enough, attended by rough, ill-mannered waiters-noisy but I gen'rally collect in advance. Just fork over to such a degree that a sober man can get but four bits or mizzle!" My friend indignantly mizlittle rest, day or night, and extravagantly high zled. Cursing the progressive spirit of the age, in proportion to the small comfort they afford. he walked some distance out of town, and was One of the newspapers published a statement about to finish the night under the lee of a big which the author probably intended for a joke, quartz boulder, when a fierce-looking speculator, but which is doubtless founded upon fact-name- with a six-shooter in his hand, suddenly aply, that a certain hotel advertised for 300 chick-peared from a cavity in the rock, saying, "No ens to serve the same number of guests. Only yer don't! Take a fool's advice now, and git! one chicken could be had for love or money-a When you go a prospectin' around ov nights very ancient rooster, which was made into soup and afterward served up in the form of a fricasee for the 300 guests. The flavor was considered extremely delicate-what there was of it; and there was plenty of it such as it was.

Still if we are to credit what the Virginia newspapers say-and it would be dangerous to intimate that they ever deal in any thing save the truth-there are other cities on the eastern slope of the Sierras which afford equally attractive accommodations. On the occasion of the recent Senatorial contest at Carson City, the prevailing rates charged for lodgings, according to the Virginia Enterprise, were as follows: "For a bed in a house, barn, blacksmithshop, or hay-yard (none to be had-all having been engaged shortly before election); horse-blanket in an old sugar hogshead per night, $10; crockery - crate, with straw, $7 50; without straw, $5 75; for cellar-door, $4; for roosting on a smooth pole, $3 50; pole, common, rough, $3; plaza fence, $2 50; walking up and down the Warm Springs road - if cloudy, $1 50; if clear, $1 25. (In case the clouds are very thick and low $1 75 is generally asked.) Very good roosting in a pine-tree, back of Camp Nye, may still be had free, but we understand that a company is being formed to monopolize all the more accessible trees. We believe they propose to improve by putting two pins in the bottom of each tree, or keep a man to boost regular customers. They talk of charging six bits."

agin, jest steer ov this boulder ef you please!" In vain my friend attempted to explain. The rising wrath of the squatter was not to be appeased by soft words, and the click of the trigger, as he raised his pistol and drew a bead, warned the trespasser that it was time to be off. He found lodgings that night on the public highway to Virginia City and San Francisco.