Unknown, "A View of the [Elephant]," ca. 1850, lithograph, gold ink. Published and sold by Cooke & LeCount, San Francisco. California Historical Society, Fine Arts collection, FN-02570. http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/exhibits/online.html#   

One of the most remarkable women in gold-rush California was Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe. She lived for over a year in a rough-and-tumble mining camp along the Feather River. She's known to us today by a marvelous series of letters she published under the pen name Dame Shirley. The letters are a valuable resource because they provide a woman's perspective on life in the gold rush. They contain a wealth of detail on the interior furnishings of miners' cabins, the clothing worn by the forty-niners, and their typical daily fare. 

Dame Shirley also records the miners' unusual figures of speech. "Seeing the elephant," for instance, meant having a truly remarkable experience, something as unusual and unexpected as encountering an elephant in the mines.