clusters around its apex and is at the head of Chili Gulch, a once
famous bonanza for the placer miners. For miles the road winds up the
gulch, which is almost devoid of timber, amid piled-up rocks and debris,
bleached and blistered by the sun's fierce rays; the gulch itself being
literally stripped to "bedrock." I had already witnessed many evidences
of man's eager pursuit of the precious metal, but nothing that so
conveyed the idea of the feverish, persistent energy with which those
adventurers in the new El Dorado had struggled day and night with
Nature's obstacles, spurred on by the auri sacra fames.

A little incident served to relieve the monotony of the climb up Chili
Gulch. A miner, who might have sat for a study of "Tennessee's Partner,"
came down the hillside with a pan of "dirt," which he carefully washed
in a muddy pool in the bed of the gulch. He showed me the result, a few
"colors" and sulphurets. He said it would "go about five dollars to the
ton," and seemed well satisfied with the result. I shall always hold him
in grateful memory, for he took me to an old tunnel, and disappearing
for a few moments, returned with a large dipper of ice-cold water. Not
the Children of Israel, when Aaron smote the rock in the desert and
produced a living stream, could have lapped that water with keener
enjoyment.

The terrific heat in Chili Gulch made the shade from the trees which
surround Mekolumne Hotel doubly grateful. Mokelumne Hill is, in fact, a
mountain, and commands a view of rare beauty. At its base winds the
wooded canon of the Mokelumne River, on the farther side of which rises
the Jackson Butte, an isolated peak with an elevation of over three
thousand feet, while in the background loom the omnipresent peaks of the
far Sierra.