The floor was thick
with debris--part human, from the former occupants; part natural,
sifted in by mountain winds. In a sea of red dust there swam or
floated sticks, boards, hay, straw, stones, and paper; ancient
newspapers, above all--for the newspaper, especially when torn,
soon becomes an antiquity--and bills of the Silverado boarding-
house, some dated Silverado, some Calistoga Mine. Here is one,
verbatim; and if any one can calculate the scale of charges, he has
my envious admiration.
Calistoga Mine, May 3rd, 1875.
John Stanley
To S. Chapman, Cr.
To board from April 1st, to April 30 $25 75
" " " May lst, to 3rd ... 2 00
27 75
Where is John Stanley mining now? Where is S. Chapman, within
whose hospitable walls we were to lodge? The date was but five
years old, but in that time the world had changed for Silverado;
like Palmyra in the desert, it had outlived its people and its
purpose; we camped, like Layard, amid ruins, and these names spoke
to us of prehistoric time. A boot-jack, a pair of boots, a dog-
hutch, and these bills of Mr. Chapman's were the only speaking
relics that we disinterred from all that vast Silverado rubbish-
heap; but what would I not have given to unearth a letter, a
pocket-book, a diary, only a ledger, or a roll of names, to take me
back, in a more personal manner, to the past? It pleases me,
besides, to fancy that Stanley or Chapman, or one of their
companions, may light upon this chronicle, and be struck by the
name, and read some news of their anterior home, coming, as it
were, out of a subsequent epoch of history in that quarter of the
world.
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