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Behind other islands we found wretched little farms, and wretcheder little log-cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a foot or two above the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chills-racked, yellow-faced male miserables roosting on the top-rail, elbows on knees, jaws in hands, grinding tobacco and discharging the result at floating chips through crevices left by lost teeth; while the rest of the family and the few farm-animals were huddled together in an empty wood-flat riding at her moorings close at hand.

They were remote and in the woods, but, owing to slavery, they swarmed from the very first with servants who could not "give notice" if they did not like the place, or felt lonesome. The first accommodation at the springs consisted of a circle of log-cabins with a dining-hall and ball-room in the centre, and this constitutes the fundamental plan of a spring to this day.

Howell somewhat contemptuously said: "Not much good, chiefly black-jacks and scrub-oaks"; but the woods were pleasant to drive through, and when they came upon scattered farms and plantations with comfortable log-cabins set in the midst of cultivated fields, the admiration of the party was excited.

The quartz ledge that caused the excitement was distinctly in evidence, indeed, when the Tahoe Railway roadbed was being graded, this quartz ledge was blasted into, and the director of operations sent a number of specimens for assay, the rock looked so favorable. Here and there were the remains of old log-cabins, with their outside stone chimneys.

The stout log-cabins were arranged in straight lines, so that their outer sides formed part of the wall, the spaces between them being filled with a high stockade, made of heavy squared timbers thrust upright into the ground, and bound together within by a horizontal stringer near the top. They were loop-holed like the block-houses.

Then there were new settlements and detached log-cabins and frame- houses, full of interest for strangers from an old country: cabins with simple ovens, outside, made of clay; and lodgings for the pigs nearly as good as many of the human quarters; broken windows, patched with worn-out hats, old clothes, old boards, fragments of blankets and paper; and home-made dressers standing in the open air without the door, whereon was ranged the household store, not hard to count, of earthen jars and pots.

It was a large, irregularly built log-cabin, or cottage, covered with thatch, resembling somewhat, except in the last particular, and in being larger, the log-cabins one meets in the new settlements of the West, with a sort of piazza or porch, which seemed to have been lately built, running across the front.

First was built a large log-cabin that would answer as a tavern and blacksmith's shop, the first requisites being to get the horses shod, and the riders supplied with whiskey. Then came other log-cabins, as they were needed, which pioneers would undertake to build for arriving emigrants for twenty-five dollars apiece.

The river was spoken of simply as Blue. Artistic beauty is not usually considered an attribute of log-cabins; but I can testify to the beauty of many that stood upon the banks of Blue, among them the house of Bays. The main building consisted of two ground-floor rooms, each with a front door and a half-story room above.

The settlers about Fort Loudon quaked in their little log-cabins and looked upon their limited clearings in the wilderness and their meager beginnings of a home, and wondered if it were worth coming so far and risking so much to attain so little.