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.
The Mokelumne Hotel is regarded as modern, dating back merely to 1868,
at which time the original building was destroyed by fire. The present
structure of solid blocks of stone, should resist the elements for
centuries to come. I was surprised at the excellent accommodations of
this hotel. In what seemed such an out-of-the-way and inaccessible
locality, I was served with one of the best meals on the whole journey,
including claret with crushed ice in a champagne glass! What that meant
to a tramp who had struggled for miles through quartz rock and
impalpable dust, up a heavy grade, without shade and the thermometer
well past the hundred mark, only a tramp can appreciate.
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