all, the blues, the shakes, the shame of it all; but out of it they must come or die, and that no one feels more keenly than the drunken man himself
Rum they found not less potent in its cure of disappointment, melancholy, and heart-aches than the nepenthes of Helen, that draught divine which lifted the soul above all ills. Their breath was almost as foul as that of Macamut the Sultan of Cambaya who, if we may believe Purchas, lived on poison, and became so saturated with it that his touch or breath caused instant death.
Sometimes half the members of a mining camp would fall into the habit of periodical sprees which would last usually from two to three days. A stranger once arriving at Rich Bar on Feather river about three o'clock in the morning, dismounted from his mule before a hotel grocery, being led thither by the glimmering of a light. A sound of revelry was heard within, but as all the other houses of the place was wrapped in darkness the stranger made bold to enter and inquire concerning accommodations for himself and beast. After arranging his affairs for the night, or rather for the rest of the morning, he remarked casually to the keeper:
" It strikes me your customers are rather late to-night."
" Oh! no, stranger," replied the landlord, " the boys of Rich Bar generally run for forty-eight hours. It's a little late this morning perhaps for night before last, but for last night, why bless you, it's only just in the shank of the evening;;! "
Time was when in our now staid and solemn-visaged communities everybody drank, everybody sometimes drank too much. They were measured by the number of bottles they could carry, and the always-sober man was a rarity. If appetite flagged thirst was excited by condiments. Drink was dealt out in horns and pointedbottom cups that would not stand so that the drinker must finish the draft before laying down the cup.
