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87 Thursday January 10th 1850.
A day passed in the tent. mining is suspended for the present. We cannot mine in the summer it is so hot - nor in the winter the river is so high. ergo = we cannot mine at all. In truth as Bennett says only those of iron constitutions - who can stand hard usage - hard fare and labour perspite everything - need try their luck in the mines of California
Friday January 11th 1850
The sun again looks forth from the sweeping clouds - like "Beauty smiling through tears" Trying the precious moments as they fly - we set our rocker in the bank. Then hours hard labor gave us [?] Wind light and from the N.W. My little vane is great company to me. True to the winds [?] notice of their changes - though dumb it speakth. It tells of rain of sunny weather. Reached high on one of Californias hills - alone and unambitious - true to the instinct of its species - it runs the compass toward. It has but one duty - and that it performed well. So may I discharge my duties - and receive the just praise thereof. Have been troubled of late with dyspepsia. My stomach too tenderly brought up - winced at the fan of miners. It has held its disposition manfully - but too much fried pork and hard bread will make a reasonable stomach run mad. What under Heavens am I to do? I cannot change my diet - the labourer must eat - and eating the cause of the disease will make me worse? To eat loathing - to eat from dire necessity. Ah! This is carrying out to the iota the disciplinarians maxim - "eat to live." I am only comfort myself with this reflection - when a child I was not trained up in [the] way I was to go. Friend Williams invited me to eat a boiled Sweet Potatoe with him. It tasted luxuriously. He is a "friend who is a friend in need." The character of living in the mines is decidedly bad. It is not of that nourishing kind which is necessary to hard labor - nor of that digestable character which will preserve in harmony the functions of the body. Then our food is that hard - dry - salt kind - which saps the juices of the body - and produces scurvy,