"Camp" [pp. 478-481]

" CAMP."M
" CAMP."
HE "Camp" of I850o was flush,
lively, flourishing, and vigorous;
buildings growing, claims yielding richly, dust at a dollar a pinch for currency,
monte, faro, and fandango. The "Camp"
of I870 is quiet, sleepy, shrunken, poor,
"gone in," "gone up." We speak of
"Camp" as it is and has been, say, since
I863.
After the first harvest of gold in California came the harvest of individuality.
In "Camp," as it were in one household, met men from the North, the
South, the East, the West, and from
every nation of Europe. In I857, or
thereabout, the e'xcitement attendant on
the first flush of the gold discovery had
abated; many men were lying on their
oars, knowing hardly what to do; their
natures rebelled against further continuance of the toiling and exhausting miner's life; they demanded more employment for mind, and less for muscle. So,
some took to law, some to medicine,
some to theology, some to politics; and
many, who had no idea for what purpose
they had been fashioned, to mischief.
"Camps" contained two classes of people: the outsiders and insiders.
The outsiders were hard-working miners, dwelling around within a radius of
a mile or two, coming into "Camp"
chiefly on Sunday, or perhaps for an
hour or so in the evening, to hear the
gossip and read the papers. They constituted the financial backbone of the
country. It was their dust which still
refreshed the till of the trader and the
saloon-keeper.
The "Camp" insiders were made up
of more or less doctors, lawyers, saloonkeepers, town or county officials, hotelkeepers, gamblers, one Express-agent,
one stage-agent, one school-master, one
postmaster, and a reserve of clever fellows, with nothing to do, not wishing for
any thing to do, living along from hand
to mouth, they scarcely knew how. All
these dwelt within a stone's-throw of the
Express-office, which may be considered
the proper nucleus of "Camp."
A "Camp" is disposed to combustibility; the hot summer sun, which beats
down steadily for six or eight months,
so drying the shingles and clapboards
that a match will set them ablaze. For
this reason there is a camp-watchman,
who walks up and down the street the
whole night, clad in a great-coat and
carrying a big cane; stopping occasionally at the "Riffle," to watch the progress of a poker-game, and with familiar
audacity taking a quarter from the "pot,"
as it lies on the table, to treat himself at
the bar. The camp-watchman has many
little responsibilities. He calls up the
Express-agent for the early morning
stage; and as the heavy Concord coach
thunders over the bridge at the farther
end of' Camp," the two commence the
exercises of the day with early morning
bitters at the "Union" -always accessible to them, at night, by a private, back
passage-way to the bar. He keeps a
strict watch on all suspicious nocturnal movements. He knows and reports
who goes in and out at unseemly hours.
He knows when every bedroom lamp
should be extinguished. He knows when
such lamps ought not to be extinguished. He has many of the "Camp" secrets
in his possession. He ends his duties
for the night by calling up the butcher.
Before the first streak of the summer
morning's dawn the early candle flares
in the place of beef, pork, and mutton;
478
[MAY,