can spell.  Here’s a man don’t know how to spell his own name.  And this shows how the race over there on the little island is degenerating.  It was not so in other days.  Shakspere, for instance, not only knew how to spell his own name, but—­and this is another proof of his superiority to his contemporaries—­he could spell it in half a dozen different ways.

This Beaver is a clever fellow, and we get on first rate together.  He is going to California for gold—­like the rest of us.  But I think he has had his share—­and spent it.  At any rate he has not much now.  I have been teaching him poker, and I am afraid he won’t have any soon.  I have an idea he has been going pretty fast—­and mostly down hill.  But he has his good points.  He is a gentleman all through, as you can see.  Yes, friend Squibob, even you could see right through him.  We are all going to California together, and I wonder which one of the three will turn up trumps first—­Beaver, or the chemist, metallurgist or something scientific, or

   Yours respectfully, JOHN PHOENIX.

P.S.  You think this a stupid letter, perhaps,
and not interesting.  Just reflect on my surroundings. 
Besides, the interest will accumulate a good
while before you get the missive.  And I don’t
know how you ever are to get it, for there is
no post-office near here, and on the Isthmus the
mails are as uncertain as the females are everywhere. 
(I am informed that there is no postage on
old jokes—­so I let that stand.)

          
                                                                                        J.P.

DOCUMENT NO. 11.

Extract from the “Bone Gulch Palladium,” June 3d, 1850:

Our readers may remember how frequently we have declared our firm belief in the future unexampled prosperity of Bone Gulch.  We saw it in the immediate future the metropolis of the Pacific Slope, as it was intended by nature to be.  We pointed out repeatedly that a time would come when Bone Gulch would be an emporium of the arts and sciences and of the best society, even more than it is now.  We foresaw the time when the best men from the old cities of the East would come flocking to us, passing with contempt the puny settlement of Deadhorse.  But even we did not so soon see that members of the aristocracy of the effete monarchies of despotic Europe would acknowledge the undeniable advantages of Bone Gulch, and come here to stay permanently and forever.  Within the past week we have received here Hon. William Beaver, one of the first men of Great Britain and Ireland, a statesman, an orator, a soldier and an extensive traveller.  He has come to Bone Gulch as the best spot on the face of the everlasting universe.  It is needless to say that our prominent citizens have received him with great cordiality.  Bone Gulch is not like Deadhorse.  We know a gentleman when we see one.