Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1861-04-05
From Our Utah Correspondent.
SILVER Cry, UTAH TERRITORY, Feb. Cd, Isl

|
DEAR GAZETTE To-day has been a most
delightful, warm, sunny day--rcal spring
weather, such as have seen long ago in the
old Buckeye State, in sugar-making time,
minus the feathcred songsters whose musical
throats were wont to echo among the tall
naples and the squirrels, whose nimblc mo-
tons, triumphant barking, and dexterity in
eludng observation your readers will find
graphically described in certain work Of
| Noah Webster's entitled the Elementary
Spelling Book" with, also, a spirited wood
cut of the "anemalc." But here we have no
squirrels, except such as live in the ground
or in the clefts of tie rocks. They are called
digger squirrels" and bear but slight re-
semblanee to the noble animal of which the
erudite l.. l.. d. has given us so spirited a
sketch in the work above referred to, being on
the contrary mixture of equal parts of
woodchnck, rat and hedgehog OF birds,
the most common arc the raven, crow and
magpie, and it would require a committee of
jackasses to describe which Of the three is
the better musician. If our lizards had only
possessed the gift OF song, the melody of
those famed four and twenty blackbirds"
barbarously "baked in pie" and set be-
fore (" certain gormandizing king in olden
times, would be but as the faint squeak of
penny-whishe piping among thousand
screaming flies. Speaking of lizards, this
has been a glorious day for them, on the
housetop, OH every stump, stone and rock
they have been stretched at full length alb
sorbing at every pore The warmth of the glo-
rious sun--black lizards, blue, green, red,
yellow, gray, calico.colored lizards and lizards
Of no particular color They arc unplcasantly
tame too, and scamper about quite as famil-
arly inside as outside of the cabins, but are
quite inoifensivc and have never known
them to attempt to bite; yet all lizards are
not so harmless. have seen kind of gray
lizard some eighteen inches in length, with a
head like that of a young pup, in Southern
California, that would spring two feet clear of
the ground at a stick, seize it and hang on
like little bull dog. One more lizard story
and will quit the subject, no doubt greatly
to the relief of my reader. for if am not
greatly mistaken have devoted more space
in my letters to "lizards " than any one
subicct-but confound it! what can | do
with them swa,ming on all sides, but notice
them; some of them have picked down in
alcohol and have had serious thoughts of get
ting an empty pork barrel and catching and
preserving one of each variety, but l fear
single barrel would not sullice--but am for
getting the story:
A miner in the vicinity of Grass Valley,
/ 4 IL 4. 4 A..
with the rheumatism; he had tried all kinds
of patent medicines and every remedy rec
commended by his friends without cXpcricn-
cling the slightest relief; had consulted
number of the best physicians and applied
their prescriptions in vain nothing seemed
to afford him the least relief. At last lie was
told Of certain Chinese doctor who was
"death on rhcum'tis,' at any distance, and
to him he sent. The celebrated practitioner
forthwith dispatched to him large bottle, of
colored glass, filled with fluid, for which he
demanded and received So. The miner was
very agrecably disappointed on taking his
first dose to find the medicine extremely
palatabc.--in fact its favor was precisely
similar to that of good article of blandy.--
The sick man took the medicine quite rs of
ten and in quite as large doses as the direc-
|
perfectly sound. Finding there remained n
substance of some kind in the bottle which
through the dark glass had the appearance
of some sort Of bark or roots and being anx-
ious to discover the secret of the Chinese
doctors great medicine, he broke the bottle
and found not roots nor bark but the remains
of three or four great black lizards which
had been pretty thoroughly smashed"
| 4 hot ,pht fhn Ipnr nj
their healing juices TO the brandy He of
course felt satisfied that he had discovered
the great secret and it is currently reported
that he was heard making noise that sound
ed little as though he were trying to shout
eureka! Ra#
| Being now done with lizards, at least till
my next letter, ! will see what | can fish
up ncxt-I don't suppose you would care
about hearing that we had wedding in town
to-day and that the "fclyurs" horse (mule)
ran away and "spilt " the happy couple out,
and all about how they rolled down the Hill
and "spit" their store CLOTHES, and how
the honest miners dwelling in the yicinagc
rushed gallantly to the rescue and found
| that, though some fifty or sixty bones were
broken, (whalc bones) size was not injured
| in the least and he only had strip Of skin
about two inches wide pulled off the end Of
his nose, bottle of brandy broken in his
coat tail pocket and his pants ripped-some-
where. AS his was their first .taliing om
let us hope it may also be their last
Weddings are Of such common occurrence
with You that further particulars would per-
haps prove uninterestng, therefore, hasten
to 9 sdrap" the subject.
Some new strikes have been made in Vir-
ginia City, in silver. One in lead called
the " Vermillion lead /" and "Ironsdes Co.."
said to be very good the price per foot went
up from 80 cts. to $50 in one day. Spccu-
lators Immediately started out after "out-
side" owners and III some instances bought
their ground as low as Sl.o0 per foot. One
or two men who owned in it being down in
the Esmcraldo mines, some half dozen spec
ulators poste4tof down there to buy them
out and will perhaps get their interests for
one tenth of their yaluc-this is fair game
here,--homo homini lupus! or more vulgarly
"dog cat dog is the rule and not the ex-
ception. Every fellow for himself and the
gsi,tleanan IN blach for the majority; best fel-
low gets the "pile,' and don't stop towhine
when your hurt Old men with blear, and
watery eyes, snowy locks and shaky, trcm.