Chinese have a quarter of their own in
our village, where they have merchants of
their own race, who keep stores supplied with
their own proper commodities. Among these
may be quoted ducks preserved in oil; fins
and tails of fishes, with the fishes also dried
and pickled—very good eating, let me add;
and beans made into a paste with a peculiar
kind of oil, highly offensive to the nose of the
mere western barbarian. They also, of course,
deal largely in rice and tea.

The collector of the tax on foreign miners
comes to our village monthly, and exacts four
dollars (about sixteen shillings and eightpence)
per month from each Chinaman, German,
Frenchman, Englishman, or other foreigner
who has not taken an oath of allegiance to
the government of the United States. At
first John Chinaman did not consent to this
arrangement, and was not at home when the
collector called, having gone off to hide among
the woods and hills. A few peremptory sales
of his mining tools for one-tenth of their
value soon opened his eyes to his own
interests, and he now pays the tax without a
murmur. For this payment a foreigner
receives a license to work in the mines for
one month; if unable to produce this license
when called upon to do so, he is liable to a
heavy fine and imprisonment.

Greater, however, than the diversity of
people is the diversity of dress among the
dwellers in our village. In the street one
may remark, of course, the general absence of
coats. Nearly every citizen is in his
shirtsleeves; but the shirts are of every hue. One
shines with the glory of scarlet; arm-in-arm
with scarlet is perhaps a shirt of the very brightest
blue; there are reds of every shade; greens,
yellows, greys. Then the variety becomes
bewildering by crossing of all these colours
in every form of check. In the other
garments there is almost equal diversity. A
genuine hat subjects its wearer to a heavy
fine in the shape of "drinks for the crowd."
Low-crowned, wide-brimmed, narrow-brimmed,
round-topped, or double-up-and-may-be-
sat-upon-without-injury form of hats, are met
with in great variety. One youth wears a tall
brigand's hat, another a Mother Shipton's —
that is to say, a perfect cone.

The village of Salmon Falls contains four
stores, or general shops. The largest is
a framed building, forty by twenty feet,
two stories high, high, lathed and plastered
inside, and painted white outside, with
a roof covered with shingles. It turns
one gable-end to the street, and has glazed
doors in the front, and two windows in the
upper story. It has also glazed doors round
each corner, so that it fronts three ways.
On the shelves inside are arranged all kinds
of ready-made clothes, reams of letter-paper,
boxes of envelopes, bottles of ink, boxes of
candles and soap, of raisins, of matches, tin
plates, knives and forks, spoons, sacks of salt,
cheeses packed in tin, and marked "prime
English dairy," tobacco, pepper, snuff and
sago.  On the floor are barrels of flour,
ham, pickled pork and beef, salmon, mackerel,
sliced and dried apples.  There are sacks
also full and half-full of flour, Indian meal,
beans, coffee, sugar, onions, potatoes, cabbage.
Again, there are in store barrels of gin, rum,
whiskey and brandy, as well as kegs that
contain nails, pickles, cider; firkins of butter,
and barrels of hard bread and soda crackers.

One portion of the store is parted off from
the rest, and devoted to liquor bottles
and decanters.  This is the "bar."  The
bar is made attractive by showy labels
on the bottles that contain brandy peaches,
brandy cherries, brandy neat as imported,
champagne, and other well-beloved potations.
There are also handsome jars devoted to
sardines and spices.  On a shelf over these are
hermetically sealed oysters, lobsters, and clams;
with caddies of tea, and fresh-ground coffee;
also cream of tartar and carbonate of soda,
used as a substitute for yeast. The roof of
the store is not left vacant.  Over head, on
nails driven into the beams, are suspended, to
the annoyance of all tall men, boots.  Boots
of all sorts and sizes.  French calf with pump
soles, thick cowhides, India-rubbers, grained
leathers and split leathers, and warranted
waterproofs; among them are to be seen the
Best Boot in the Store, the Cheapest Boot in
the Store, the Most Serviceable Boot in the
Store, and a multitude of others labelled, which
all hang together there.  It is a pity that they
will not hang together many days upon the
feet of purchasers.

Our store of course contains the digger's
ironmongery: picks, warranted not to break
in the eye; steel shovels; axes and hoes;
pick-handles and axe-handles; crowbars,
coils of rope, coffee-pots, teapots, frying-pans,
camp-kettles, and tin pans for washing out
gold. There we may also buy strong purses
to hold the gold, and iron safes to hold the
purses.

Our currency at Salmon Falls is as
motley as our dress.  We have no need of
money-changers. No foreign coin is
quarrelled with. When the exact value of any
piece is doubtful, it is appraised roughly in a
few moments to the perfect satisfaction of all
parties. I take as I write a handful of silver
coin at random from the money-drawer.
What do I turn out? One dollar, Spanish,
1720; a five-franc piece of Charles X.; a
dollar, republic of Bolivia, 1850; a five-franc
piece of the Empire, 1811; one of Louis
Philippe, Roi des Français, 1834; another,
Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité; another,
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Empereur; all
equally esteemed here, and current at the
uniform rate of one dollar. Among smaller
coins, I find the English shilling, the one-
franc piece, the Spanish pistareen , all ranking
as equals with the American quarter-
dollar. Copper currency we men of Eldorado
scorn. We have none, and we wish for none;