KLATSASSAN. 185

find elsewhere. In this spirit California was once for-
saken for New Zealand, and men left Australia for the
banks of the Amazon, and it was by a “rush” of emigra-
tion from the adjoining States that the British Columbian
gold-fields were peopled and explored. Of course the
natural effect of a nomadic life like this, an effect in-
creased by its uncertainty, its perils, and its privations, is
to make thoughtless men more thoughtless, and rough
men rougher. Severed from the softening influences of
religion and domestic life, the man grows hard, lawless,
and the mere creature of his impulses and passions; and
often his recklessness and ungoverned disposition will
exhibit itself in language of unparalleled coarseness and
blasphemy.

It was once my lot to form a close acquaintance, more
close than pleasant, with the language of gold-diggers.
Tt was in the fall of 1864 (after the occurrence of the
events hereinafter recorded). Onmy way down the coun-
try, [ had occasion to pass anight at Soda Creek, a place
on the Fraser River, sixty miles south of Alexandria. It
is a pretty place, and an improving settlement, and mine
host of the inn was as courteous as circumstances would
permit. He gave me a room all to myself, with a table
for my bed, and a flour-sack for a pillow. Separated from
me by a slight partition was the bar-room, crowded with
miners. They drank and gambled all night, and their
talk ran high. It was fearful. I thought as I lay
awake on my table, surely this conversation is more than
human. “The gates of hell,” I fancied, “ must have been
left open by mistake to-night, and the inmates have
escaped and are filling the adjacent room. They seem to
join in a dance of demons, shouting forth their maddest
curses and foulest ribaldry. Wouldto God I could sleep
through it!” In vain, alas! nosleep came. Next morn-
ing I breakfasted with those men. I was anxious to give
them a bit of my mind, and an opportunity soon occurred.
The man sitting next me asked if I was thinking of
going down country by the river. They, I knew, were
going by the road; I replied in the affirmative. “It’s
takin’ awful chances,” he said “to go down that river.”
I said I didn’t believe in chance, nor in fact did I think
there was much danger. ‘And besides,” I added, and
here I raised my voice so as to be heard all down the
long table, and the clatter of knives and forks for a
moment ceased, “besides, Ill tell you what it is, I
would rather run the risks of the river, were they a
thousand times greater than they are, than sleep another
night under the same roof with such fellows as you.
Last night I heard the language of devils in hell, and
believe me, I don’t want to hear it again if I can help it.’
“Do you hear that,” said one of them to his neighbour,
“wall, I guess that 7s pretty trong.”

However, they received reproof kindly, and I am
sure that if I had next sent round my hat to gather
donations for some poor sick or ruined fellow-traveller
it would have come back bursting with nuggets and
gold-dust. Men are not all evil, and at the worst there
is, as Sam Slick says, a deal of humanity in human nature.

When on the subject of gold-diggers and their ways, I
may mention one or two of their peculiar expressions,
for there is much that is curious and original in their
slang!, The miner, for instance, has a way of strengthen-
ing his asseverations by winding up with a challenge to

1 There appeared an amusing “Chapter on Miners’ Slang,”
in the British Colonist, August 11, 1863.

you to take a wager to the contrary (if youdare). “You
bet!” he says. A respectable man (a Canadian, say) who
has let himself in for this rather disreputable phrase, will
seek to retrieve his character by making it into “you
bet—ter believe it!” making a very poor thing of it
indeed !

But the miner, not content with the vague utterance,
will suggest what you are to wager. “ You bet your
boots,” or “you bet your bottom dollar,” including the
whole “pile” raised thereon, or even in a wild moment
he will say, “ You may bet your life that 7s so.” When
the miner wishes to say of any one that he has left the
country, possibly leaving his debts too, he would use a
Castilian phrase done into American, and say he has “ va-
moosed the ranche ;” or again, has “sloped,” or that he
has “made tracks.” The last (Canadian) expression is of
course borrowed from the fact that a man travelling in
the snow or through the wood, leaves marks or tracks as
he goes. When a man is suspected, he is said to be
* spotted.” When he pays nothing but fine words for
his provisions, he is said to give only “jaw-bone.” Thus
jaw-bone means credit, and in some shops one can see the
speaking sign of the jaw-bone of an ox or an ass, with the
word “Wo” written above it and the word “here” below, the
obvious meaning of this symbolism being “ Terms cash.”
If a person appears in a coat (pioneers have not much
time to attend to their costume, and go about in woollen
shirt with trousers strapped at the waist), they will say of
him that he is “putting on frills ”*—an expression ap-
plied to any one who gives himself airs, or in any way
appears to be superior in appearance, station, or tone of
moral sentiment to the “ honest miner.” If one has his
hair cut, he is said to get himself “shingled,” from the
material with which the houses in border lands are mainly
roofed. A very common expression of approval is “ Bully
for you,” (American) or the Canadian phrase, “ Good on
your head.” »On the other hand, when the miner has
oceasion to blow up any one, he is said to give him “ fits,”
or, a stronger phrase. A clergyman going home from
church one Sunday, overheard some of his flock saying to
one another, “I guess he gave the boys hell to-night.”
It must surely have been a strange gospel he had preached,
or a strange distortion of his sermon they had taken in!
One more phrase will suffice. I have kept it to the last,
because it has something touching and poetical about it,
which is more than we can say of the others. Ifa man
appears to be downcast about any thing, they will say,
“There’s a deal of trouble on the old man’s mind.”
They call any one old, whatever his years, and indeed
men age fast. in a new country: life is exciting and
anxious, and grey hairs come soon, and one finds himself
grown to be, as it were, a very old man, even before the
spring-tide of his days is done.

A peculiarity of miners is that they seldom call one
another by their proper names. Like schoolboys they
are known by some cognomen indicative of something
in their personal appearance, or commemorative of some
feat. It is easy to understand how such worthies as Whisky
Dick, Monte John, Freeze-out Bill, won their titles, nor is
there much mystery about Missouri Bill, Scotty, the Wild
Yankee, Sixtoed Pete. But whence the name of Dough
Nuts, or the designation Limber Jim? As for Grasshop-
per Bill, he was no doubt related to that other, Dancing
Bill, who has left his name on the map of the country in
“Dancing Bill’s Cut off.”