PREFATORY.
THIS book is merely a personal narrative, and not a
pretentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of
several years of variegated vagabondizing, and its object is rather
to help the resting reader while away an idle hour than afflict him
with metaphysics, or goad him with science. Still, there is
information in the volume; information concerning an interesting
episode in the history of the Far West, about which no books have
been written by persons who were on the ground in person, and
saw the happenings of the time with their own eyes. I allude to the
rise, growth and culmination of the silver-mining fever in
Nevada—a curious episode, in some respects; the only one, of its
peculiar kind, that has occurred in the land; and the only one,
indeed, that is likely to occur in it.
Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of
information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it
could not be helped: information appears to stew out of me
naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter.
Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could
retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I calk up the sources,
and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. Therefore, I can
only claim indulgence at the hands of the reader, not
justification.