up. Proposals were made by the black dealers to get goods on trust, and return with gold. The natives, true as steel to their words, came back and gladdened the hearts of the Gambia citizens by their liberal dealing, who eagerly agreed to pursue the trust system to a still greater extent. However, to make a long story short, the trust and pay game was merrily played, palavers were held, rice discussed, kola nuts exchanged, palm wine quaffed, presents given and received, and speculation was all agog as to the successful issue of the vast exportations of gold from the Gambia.

At last a swarm of native dealers inundated Bathurst, and swept away British manufactures, until the stores were empty. Happy man! who had not a bale of blue baft, a solitary sour coffee, or a head of tobacco left upon his shelves; and for once, the merchants were agreed. Differences were healed, parties joined hands and smoked, who never smoked before, the El Dorado age was to be realized, and fairy legends verified; silver was at a discount; teak, oak, cam-wood, bees'-wax, and gum, were mere drugs in the market; the streets were literally to be paved with gold, but the houses not thatched with pancakes, only because eggs were scarce;-when, lo! the hour, the day of reckoning arrived. No native strangers showed their dusky visages. Night passed,-and another,—and another,--and another flitted by,-still no honest traders darkened Bathurst, or cast their shadows upon 'Change. Faces began to look blank; ledgers were in requisition; messengers despatched towards the interior; clerks and book-keepers, on house-tops and from attic windows, with telescopes glued to their eyes, until from heat and straining the organs of vision almost melted in their sockets, and like so many "Sisters Ann," "saw nobody coming." But hope still lingered in the breasts of the merchants. until, like dinner too long deferred, it made them very sick. The bubble at last burst, the trick was discovered, and never were they gladdened with the society of their African friends. Never again did they congregate with them on 'Change. But consolation came in this shape,-they heard, some years after, a new road had been opened through the interior, and that gold-dust was shipped from Sierra Leone and other ports.

(To be continued.)

THE GOLD MINE OF SAN SABA,

A RECORD OF INDIAN FIGHT.

BY PERCY B. ST. JOHN, AUTHOR of THE TRAPPER'S bride, &c."

(Concluded from No. 199, page 279.)

"THE Indians soon found that their endeavour to rout us by fire had proved this time a failure, discovering which they reoccupied the points of rocks, trees, bushes, &c., and commenced another attack upon us, discharging their rifles and bows at us with the utmost perseverance. We replied by shots, few and far between, reserving our fire in all instances until it was sure to tell with effect. Volley after volley succeeded one another from both sides for some time, when the wind suddenly shifted to the north, and blew very hard. Our situation was now, it may easily be believed, most dangerous, should the Indians be enabled to set fire to the small spot which we occupied, and we kept, therefore, a strict watch all around, as you are well aware an Indian will deceive Lucifer himself by his cunning. The two mulatto lads, Gonzales and Charles, were employed in scraping away dry grass and leaves from around the baggage, and pulling up additional stones and boughs, to place, rampart-like, round our wounded men. We ourselves were engaged in a hot contest with the enemy, whom we were well aware would not be long without discovering some means of taking advantage of the unfavourable change in the wind, especially if we did not keep them warmly employed. Presently, however, despite our utmost vigilance, one of the Indians succeeded in crawling down the creek, and throwing a brand amongst the grass which lay between the river and our camp. Before, however, he could make good his retreat to his companions, he was detected and killed by Robert Armstrong.

"We now gave ourselves almost entirely up to despair, as we could see no chance of escape for one of us. Our position may be said to have been truly awful. The fire, devouring the parched grass, was coming down rapidly before the wind, the flames bursting ten feet high, and making directly for the spot which we occupied, filling the atmosphere with a dense and pungent vapour, most disagreeable and painful both to our eyes and lungs. Each second the fire approached nearer and nearer. What was to be done? To remain was, as far as we could now see, to be burnt alive,-to take to the prairie was to be driven among the savages and to be pitilessly slaughtered. The Indians were aware of the critical nature of our position, and were proportionably encouraged. To mark their sense of victory, and to render our case the more awful, their whoops and yells rent the air in every direction; at the same time, lest all this should prove insufficient to occupy our attention, they fired amongst us about twenty shots a minute. The smoke, borne down upon us by the wind, soon completely enveloped us, and, as soon as we were entirely hid from their view, we collected together, and held a consultation as to the best course which we could pursue. Our first impression was that they would charge us under the cover of the smoke, which was by no means an agreeable prospect,

since we knew ourselves able to make but one effectual fire,-the sparks already flying about so thickly that no man dared open his powder-horn, for fear of the risk of blowing up. We, however, determined, should they make the attempt, to sell our lives as dearly as possible, and, accordingly, we concluded to give them one fire, place our backs toge ther, draw our knives, and fight them as long as one amongst us was left alive. The next question was, should they not have courage to trifle with our despair, what was to be done? since there appeared no other prospect but that of being burnt up, like a snake in his hole, which was by no means an encouraging aspect of affairs. We, however, decided, just as the fire encircled us completely, bushes, trees, grass, everything flaming around us in every direction, that each man should for the present take care of himself, until the element had wasted its force, while our baggage, persons, horses, and wounded, should be smothered in buffalo robes, deer skins, bear's hides, and blankets, to keep off the sparks; which was accordingly done.

"Crouching down, therefore, each man desperately grasped his rifle, and waited the result. We could scarcely breathe from the smoke, but still I could not forbear gazing with curiosity upon the singular appear. ance of our encampment. A plot of ground, abont a dozen yards square every way, had been surrounded by a rude breastwork formed of bushes, stones, our baggage, and the bodies of five horses killed by the Indians; over all this was spread the blankets, &c., as above described. In one corner, lying down in a confused heap, were the rest of our cattle, tied almost neck and heels, and suffering severely from hunger and thirst; which last was not much allayed by the scorching blast which now blew over them. Near at hand were the wounded, Buchanan and Doyle, as well as the body of the unfortunate M'Caslin. We ourselves, seated on our hams, covered over almost wholly by our mantles, grasping our fire-arms, were occupying whatever position was thought most convenient. Night had drawn in, and in the gloom of evening the flames, the smoke, the flying sparks were doubly vivid, covering us by a complete canopy of vapour and fire, the wind blowing it right over our heads. Suddenly, however, the bushes ceased to afford fuel, and in a few minutes ashes and smoke were alone surrounding us.

"As soon as the dense vapour subsided in toto we had leisure to examine our position, and, finding that the thicket no longer afforded us any shelter, we determined to remain within the ring originally formed to protect our wounded men and baggage, and accordingly employed ourselves in strengthening it as much as possible, building the breastwork higher with whatever stones we could pick up in the inside, and with earth dug up with our knives and sticks. During this time the Indians were engaged in removing their dead and wounded, and appeared little disposed to renew the contest. It was now two hours past sundown, and we had been engaged with them since the morning, in an uninterrupted fight of thirteen hours. Presently, approaching, and seeing us alive, and ready again to cope with them, they drew off, and encamped for the night with their dead and wounded.

"We now snatched a brief hour of repose, of which we were sore in need, after so long and unremitting a contest, eating also a small quantity of food, and rendering every possible assistance to Buchanan

and Doyle, by bandaging and washing their wounds. The hour being passed, we again commenced working at the fortifications, with the object of raising them higher, and succeeded in getting them rather above the level of our breasts by ten o'clock. We then filled our skins, gourds, and other vessels with water from the neighbouring creek, as we fully expected a protracted siege; and, in order to obviate any inconvenience which might arise from the dead horses, we took care entirely to cover them with earth, without moving them from the very useful place they occupied in the ramparts. To the living animals we gave water, and a small supply of grass; torn hastily from the edge of the creek, where the dampness of the soil had arrested the progress of the fire, which, however, yet smouldered in some few portions of the thicket around us.

"All these matters being satisfactorily completed, at midnight we were summoned to a duty of a more solemn nature, that of burying our dead. From amid our baggage we had taken two shovels and a pickaxe, provided in order to try the gold-mine of San Saba, and which had proved of much service in throwing up the breastwork; we now, however, put them to another use, commencing to dig a grave, James Bowie, Armstrong, and Wallace using the tools, while I, Razin Bowie, Cephas Hamm, and Coriell, stood around, holding a torch of pitch-pine, with which we always took care to be provided. Each man was silent, wrapped in his own thoughts; all were fatigued, wounded, and sad, yet uncertain that our bodies might not lie here even more unceremoniously than that of our friend. The spectacle struck me as exceedingly awful and extraordinary. The grave being dug to a depth of three feet, a moment of repose and hesitation followed, during which, raising my torch, and casting its glare both on those who stood around and in the pit, I observed that every man was violently moved by the solemnity and melancholy nature of the scene. The two Bowies then lifted up the body, lowered it into the grave, placed by its side his powder-horn, shot-bag, in short, all his accoutrements, save his fowling-piece, too necessary in the combat, especially as having two barrels, to be spared. In five minutes more a white man's grave rose in the midst of the wild desert of New Mexico,-a bloody and lasting monument of the strife and contention of the day. At no great distance the discomfited and disappointed Indians, more ceremonious in their grief, were crying and wailing over their dead preparatory to their obsequies; and, about one in the morning, a volley of small arms proclaimed the fulfilment of an Indian custom,-a mortally-wounded chief had been shot. The cries and howls were then renewed with extraordinary vigour, and endured until dawn.

"We, taking guard in turns, lay down to snatch an anxious moment of repose. We were truly much in need of it, but of course it was unsettled and broken; especially as our wounded, as well as the poor cattle, were very restless, the former complaining of want of some cooling medicine, of which necessary we were quite deficient. Towards daybreak the Indians started for a hill, distant about three miles, where, in a celebrated cave in the side of the mountain, they interred the slain; and, this done, filed off, and were lost in the woods, carrying their wounded with them, as if about entirely to depart,-a species of manœuvre far too slight to outwit a party of regular backwoodsmen.

About eight in the morning, ere the funeral rites of our enemies were concluded, I and Bowie took our guns and walked to the Indian encampment, which we found totally deserted; but forty-eight bloody spots, in a long row, on the grass, marked the number of their dead, and we calculated that they must have thirty more wounded. Our casualties were, one killed, three severely wounded, eight slightly, five horses killed, and three wounded. This disparity is easily explained by our being intrenched within a thicket, also by our being superior marksmen, and having better rifles.

"The fact, however, of all hands being more or less disabled, decided us on remaining in the fort, at all events for that day; and all those who were able recommenced strengthening it from the outside, and continued their labour patiently until about an hour after mid-day, when the arrival of thirteen Indians drove us again within the fort. They did not, however, think it advisable to come within gun-shot, and seeing that we were still there ready for action, and well fortified, also that we were not to be induced by the smallness of their numbers to give chase, they put off; not before, however, we had elevated a red silk handkerchief on one of our ramrods, in token of defiance.

"That evening and night, as well as during the whole of the next day, we received no molestation, the Indians being neither seen nor heard of. Our camp, in the midst of the black stumps of live oak, and the ashes of the thicket and grass, alone giving signs of life. Knowing, however, their devilish cunning, and, besides, aware of our own deplorable weakness, we ventured no further from the fort than to collect fodder for our horses; during one of which expeditions Wallace killed a fine buck, and Bowie a couple of wild turkeys, a kind of food exceedingly pleasant and welcome to us. Of provender for our cattle we took care to provide a good supply, knowing well that on them depended our ultimate escape from the hand of the heathen. In order, therefore, to give some exercise to their crippled limbs, and to promote the circulation of the blood, we continually walked them round the interior of the camp. It was impossible to take them out and in, with rapidity, without making an entrance in the breastwork, which would have proved somewhat inconvenient.

"The evening, however, of the third day was exceedingly dark and cloudy, we accordingly kept a bright look-out in every direction, satisfied that the Indians would not fail to choose this opportunity for a surprise if they intended again to molest us. The horrors of a night-contest, hand to hand, were too well known to us, not to wish to keep them at a distance if possible. About ten, the moon peeping slightly and faintly through a cloud, Coriell, who was mounting guard, without moving an inch from his position, whispered us to be close and ready, for a dark mass of Indians were creeping stealthily along the creek, preparatory to a rush on the camp. All remained quiet as death,-a gentle breeze sighed across the plain,-we held our very breath, grasping our rifles with fierce and angry determination.

In obedience to the advice of Razin, Armstrong, Wallace, Hamm, as well as Gonzales and Charles, armed with Buchanan and Doyle's rifles, stood back, while M'Caslin's double-barrelled gun was placed in reach of my hand. Peering through a line of rude loopholes we had made in our rampart, we could plainly perceive the whole body of the Indians,