*^ I I CALIFORNIA INTER POCULA CALIFORNIA IJSTTEE POCULA A REVIEW OF SOME CLASSICAL ABNORMITIES. HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT. Pape Satan, Pape Satan, aleppe! Dante. SAN FRANCISCO: THE HISTORY COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 1888 Entered accordiug to Act of Congress in the year 1888, by HUBERT H. BANCROFT, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. All Riylita Reserved. PREFACE. So full of oddities, and crudities, and strange devel- opments, consequent upon unprecedented combina- tions of nationalities, characters and conditions, were the flush times of California, that to condense them into the more solid forms of history without to some extent stifling the life that is in them and marring their originality and beauty is not possible. There are topics and episodes and incidents which cannot be vividly portrayed without a tolerably free use of words — T do not say a free use of the imagination. Much has been written of the Californian Inferno of 1849 and the years immediately following, much that is neither fact nor fable. Great and gaudy pictures have been painted, but few of them bear much resemblance to nature. Many conceits have been thrown off by fertile brains which have given their authors money and notoriety ; but the true artist who, with the hand of the master drawing from life, places before the observer the all-glowing facts, unbesmeared by artificial and deceptive coloring, has yet to appear. No attempt is made in these pages to outdo my predecessors in morbid intensifications of the certain phases of society and character engendered of the times. They contain simple sketches and plain de- scriptions, historical rather than fantastical, with no effort toward effect. (V) CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME, CHAPTER I. PAGE THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNU 1 CHAPTER II. THREE CBNTUEIES OF WILD TALK ABOUT GOLD IK OALIFOENIA . ... 25 CHAPTER III. fXTHTHEK RUMOBS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOLD IN OALIFOBNIA PRIOR TO THE DISCOVERY BY MARSHALL. 44 CHAPTER IV. AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL DURING THE SPRING OF 1848 . 62 CHAPTER V. THE JOXnunSY OVERLAND 89 CHAPTER VI. THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNU — NEW YORK TO 0HAGRB3 121 CHAPTER VII. THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA— ISTHMUS OF PANAMA 165 CHAPTER VIII. THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA— PANAMA TO SAN FRANCISCO . . . . .'l90 CHAPTER IX. EL DORADO .225 CHAPTER X. CLASSICAL ABNORMITIES 248 . , CHAPTER XI. SAN FRANCISCO 260 (V) vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER Xll. SOCIETY , t 294 CHAPTER Xni. FURTHER ABNORMTTIES 315 CHAPTER XIV. BUSINESS , . . • . 334 ^ CHAPTER XV. II LUSTRATIONS OF I:ht when standincr entranced before entrancing nature, what a pity it was we could not alwa3^s have her scenes before us; and as for heaven, give it to those who are dissatisfied with earth. Only exterminate north winds, nervousness, and all rascal- ity, and I could rest contented yet awhile here upon this bench, though not a god. Walled in on every side, without loop-hole or portal save by passes to the plateau regions of Utah and Arizona, and the bay of San Francisco, which across the concave from where we sit, and midway between its north and south extremes, parts the Coast Kange, whose green and grizzly hills it crowds back, and paves the way through the Golden Gate to the Pacific, we have before us what was once broad ocean, then an inland sea, afterward a hedged-in Eden, God- given to a thrice happy race, and later converted into a nineteenth-century coliseum, wherein was destined to be performed a play entitled The New Greed- struo-orle of the Nations. Time enouoh however, to talk about that to-morrow. Sit still awhile and we shall presently see, out here upon this holiday of creation, elves and fays, if any there are left for these new Arcadian vales. We can offer them whereon to sport ground which one day will be as classic as that of Greece, plains up-swelling beneath their feet, and slopes of evergreen and sweeps of forest. Then there are warm inviting knolls under star-lit skies, and enchanted groves where heaven's witchery might wanton regardless of irate ocean on one side or shadowless deserts on the other. When this mighty Sierra was a-building, this grand up-lift, with its fluted sides flushed with never- 4 THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. dying foliage, its white-cushioned benches, and long serrated summits, its rocky pinnacles whose alabaster crests glisten lustrous to mariners a hundred miles away, when its crevices were being filled with molten gold, a sea of sorrow was about to roll at its base, for the squabble for tliis treasure that is presently to come will be pitiful to see. Split a feni-stalk and place it in a dish with the thick ends together, and the leafy sides both lying toward the east, and you have mapped the drainage system of the California valley. The stalks are the two rivers, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, which, rising respectively at either end of the great valley, graciously receive their tributaries as they wind through oak and poplar vistas; then rolling slowly on, ever slowly, once bright and clear with happy contentment, but presently opaque in sullen shade, on to their junction, and thence together to the sea. And it is along this eastern side, where the branches and leaves and leaflets rest on the edges of the dish, and form labyrinths of ridges, and subordinate valleys upon which are flung in infinite disorder, bluffs, chasms, and smoothly rounded stone-waves heaped almost mountain high, that we have the Sierra foot- hills, already abnormally classic. Aside from the petrified sentinels left standing adown the centuries, there is ample evidence of what Plutus was hammer- ing at hereabout. Left, after laying the Sierra foun- dation, were the dead volcanoes which we see, and their trachyte spurs flanking dark green forests, all intermingled with lavender and buff lava beds and scoriae; blistered ashen slopes, whose vegetation is stunted and ill-tempered, and fire-riven hills of purple rock, loose and crumbling, to which cling blasted pines and wind-smitten oaks. Over many of her deformities nature spreads a seemly covering, hid- ino|; what were otherwise the bare bones of an un- m THE COAST RANGE. 5 sightly skeleton. Many of these foundation-hills, and particularly the little valleys between them were fin- ished in her happiest mood. Many of these cinders of spent forces have been well fleshed with soil, w^ell watered, made fragrant with gums and odorous plants, and toned in healthy glistening green. But it is down into the valleys that you must go, into the valleys of the Coast Range, and that too be- fore man has mutilated everything, if you would see what nature has done for this strip of seaboard. There are natural meadows arabesque with tawny wild-oats, blossoming pea, and golden mustard, interspersed with indigenous vineyards, and fruit-bearing thickets. There are flower-gardens laid out in patterns by the deft fingers of nature, stars and crowns and chaplets of yellow, purple, white, and red. Scattered over broad park-like plains, and rising from tall wavy grass are oaks of various forms and species, some high with broad branches, and many scraggy and storm-bent. Here and there trees cluster in groves, and clumps of under-growth gather round to keep them company. Rising from the broad plain are solitary buttes, w^ith cloud-entangling crests, sharp and high; and all around the borders bluff promontories, and tongues of uplifted land timbered with beech and birch, ash, myrtle, and laurel, shoot out into the valley, some- times sudsiding in small round hills covered with tulips, wild onions, hemp, flax, and prickly chaparral. Now bring down through rocky canons the clear dancing water; lead it round in winding courses v/here it will best moisten the surface, broadening it occasionally mto lakes, locking it in lagoons, or leav- intj it in slug^o-ish slouo-hs; then go out while the morning is fresh and gray, just as the sun begins to pour a sensuous warmth into the air, to refine the mists and give lustre to the foliage, and to set life glowing under a blue and purple haze, and if the e^^es shine not with gladness, and the breast swells not 6 THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. with gratitude, then the heart is hard indeed, and the breast but Httle better than a flint. You say tliat such a region sliould teem witli ani- mal Hfe, and so it does. You can see there pehcans and sea-gulls fishing together in the bays; seals and soa-lions barking on the islands; wild fowl thickly clustered on lake and tule-marsh ; fish darting amid the waters; and beasts of many several sorts roaming the forests. On the tangled hillside is heard the soft note of the curlew ; you may listen also to the rust- ling of the pheasant, the chirrup of the blackbird, the whistling of the partridge, and the sweet songs of the robin and the lark. And they all rest content ; they are not driven by intense heat or cold to long migrations, their little journeys between valley and mountain being scarcely more than an afternoon's ramble. Nor need they take much thought for the morrow; even the prudent bee often leaves neglected the honey-bearing flower, and fails to lay in a winter's store. To elk and antelope, deer and bear, hill and plain are one, and that whether scorched by summer's sun or freshened by winter's rain. Bounteous nature plants the fields, brings forth the tender verdure, cures the grass, and stores the acorns. Little of frozen winter is here, little of damp, malarious sum- mer ; cool invio-oratino^ nig^hts succeed the warmest days. Ice and snow banished hence sit cold and stolid on distant peaks, whence are reflected the impotent rays of the sun. Where then is winter ? November drops its gentle rain upon the sun-burned ground, closing the weather- cracks, freshening the Lydian air, and carpeting the late gray hills and vales in green; and this is winter. Spring comes warm and wanton, and nature is clad in holiday garb. Summer, dry and elastic, and trem- bling in amethystine light, is fragrant with the odor of dried grass, cypress, wild bay, and juniper. The heat of summer is seldom enervating:, and the thick sullen fogs that creep in from the ocean are not WONDERS OF THE REGION. 7 unhealtliy. The climate of California is reliable; though her women may be fickle, her winds are not. Rain she sends at rain-time, and this having passed prayers are of no avail. Thus along the centuries seasons come and go, while over all diurnally sweeps the half-tropic sun. In the broad arch float flocks of light clouds, or spread out in long fleecy folds between which at night silently sails the melancholy moon. From the sparkling white on alpine domes the gray and golden sunlight smiles across the amphitheatre, enfolds the lustrous clouds which send shadows crawling along the mountain- side and over the plains, nods with its earliest rays to sleepy ocean, dances back from sea to snow-peak; then, palpitating in purple, it rises from violet-banks and grizzly hills, and mingles with the russet haze of the horizon, or creeps in tenderer tones through evanescent mists into deep canons and murky ravines, and glows warm and tremulous over the sombre shades below. Before descending to the more practical affairs of life in this region, I might point you out some of the so-called wonders of the arena-rim ; though I may say to jou that long since I arrived at the conclusion that there is in heaven or earth no one thing more wonderful than another. With whatsoever we are un- familiar, that to us is wonderful when seen ; wonder is but the exclamation of ignorance. Yonder at the northern end, lonely and white, stands Mount Shasta, girdled by lesser volcanic peaks that look like pigmies beside the monarch of the north which lifts its front so proudly above the solemn forest- sea that beats in mournful monotones upon its base. To one not cradled amid such sio-hts its awful orandeur beside our puny life is crushing. Standing in the clear atmosphere, unrivalled and apart, like Orion it catches from over the eastern ridofe the first ravs of morninof, and flashes them far down the vista; while at evening 8 THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. its frosty diadem gleams witli the glances of the departing sun long after the shades of night have overs}3read the surrounding hills. Before us at the portal two sentinels, Helena and Diablo, guard either side, with Tamalpais picketed near the entrance ; while far to the south, over the Tulare lakes and meadows, from the cold starlit ether or glowing in the roseate hues of day, the tall obelisks and stately domes and bristlhig minarets of mounts Brewer, Whitney, and Tyndall look down in grave guardianship. Proud immutability ! Yet whether dripping with slimy sea-beds, or being graven by glaciers, or smoothed into forms of comeliness by tempest, these mighty ministers to needful lowlands do nevertheless slowly crumble in decay, and with their dust feed forest aijd flower. So man is laid low, and mind. A little to our left, and almost hidden by granite- waves and conoidal domes that rise out of broad fir- planted snow-fields, yawns the plateau-rent of Yosem- ite. It lies in the Sierra foothills, nearly at right angles to their trend, and consists of a trough-like erosion, or sink, about a mile in jierpendicular depth, six miles in length, with a flat bottom from half a mile to a mile in irregular width. Angles and square recesses press into walls of light gray granite, bril- liantly white under the reflection of the sun's rays, in places reddened by moss, fantastically carved, or stained with vertical parallel stripes of brown and black. Over these smooth white walls the Merced and its tributaries leap in wavy silver threads, and dashing in dusty foam upon the chasm floor, intone eternal hallelujahs. Any one of the scores of domes, and peaks, and perpendicular channels, and lichen- covered precipices that here present themselves taken apart constitutes of itself a study. Climbing up the outer side of the basin, and emer- ging from the level forest that covers the thick flat rim and veils the approach to the chasm^ the tourist YOSEMITE. 9 of later times sharply reins in his steed — if so be that the jaded cayuse requires it — dismounts, and stands on Inspiration point, a rocky eminence com- manding a partial view of the valley. Here every one who writes a book stands spell-bound as if in the presence of the almighty, beholds a new heaven and a new earth, feels the omnipotence and majesty of the infinite, attempts in vain to give his vision utter- ance, indulges in a sublime fit of rhapsod}^, and then drops into mesmeric silence. Old life and ordinary emotions are suspended, and a new tide of feeling rushes in upon the soul. The mortal part of man shrinks back, and the immortal prostrates the beholder before this apparition of majesty and desolation. Entering at the lower end by the Mariposa trail, a general view of the valley is obtained, which displays first, on the left, the granite-block El Capitan, a smooth seamless battlement, rising clearly cut 3,300 feet in height; and on the right the Bridal Veil fall, a white cascade of fluttering gossamer, leaping from the western edge of Cathedral rock 630 feet, when striking the heaped-up debris at the base of the cliff, it continues in a series of cascades 300 feet perpen- dicular to the bottom, where it flows off" in ten or twelve streamlets. Summer dries the Virgfin's Tears that fall opposite the Bridal Veil, for their source is not the eternal snow of the high sierra. When the stream that feeds the fall runs low, nearly all the water is dissipated, by the wind, which first sways, then scatters it, and finally breaks it into quivering spray, which the tardy sun, when it appears, gilds with rainbows. Over the floor of the enclosure is spread a varie- gated carpet fit for a palace of the gods. Meadows of thick grass are interspersed with flowers and flowering shrubs, and fringed with thickets of manzanita, alder, maple, and laurel, and groves of oak, cedar, and fir, with occasional moss-covered rocks, marshes, and patches of sand; while high up on the battlement, 10 THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. clinging to crevice and shelving rock, are tall grace- ful ferns, with branches of the most delicate tracery, which from their dizzy height look like tiny shrubs. United with grandeur are sweet freshness and melody ; mingling with iris-hued mists is the fragrance of flowers, and with the music of the waters the songs of birds. Receiving and giving rest to the troubled waters after their fearful leap is still the Merced river, which winds tlirough the valley in sharp angu- lar bends, strikino- first one side and then the other. It IS some seventy feet in width, and as transpar- ent almost as air; indeed, so deceivingly limpid is it, that the unwary tourist who steps into it is soon beyond his depth. So too in regard to everything in and around this region of vastness ; dimensions are so stupendous that judgment is confounded ; the in- experienced eye cannot measure them. Distance is cheated of its effect; until perhaps, one toils in vain all day to accomplish what appears to be no difficult task, when the mistake is discovered and the eye is strained no longer. Now and then a huge boulder, breaking from its long resting-place, comes crashing down the precipice, thundering in loud reverberations throughout the chasm. Sometimes in spring a flood bursts on Yosemite, when there is a tumult of waters, and high carnival is held in the valley. Scores of newly- born streams and streamlets fall from the upper end, and along the side roar a hundred cataracts whose united voices might waken Endymion. Pyramids of mist stand on the chasm floor, and ribbons of white waters twenty or thirty feet apart hang against black walls, or fall like comet's tails side by side, with jets shooting out from either side like arrows, weaving gauzy lace-work and forging fairy chains. In May and June the streams are flush, and the monotone of falling waters is broken by crash and boom like angry surf striking tlie shore ; but as au- tumn approaches, the roaring cataracts dwindle to DIZZY WATERFALLS. 11 mere threads, which are shattered to mist in their descent, or disappear entirely. Frost dispels a portion of the summer haze, and the air of whiter is clear and cold. The granite walls glisten in a net-work of ice, and the frozen vapor whirls through the canon, smit- ing the cliffs, and overspreading the domes in layers of white, which, as they thicken, loosen their hold, slide off in huge masses, and striking upon the debris piles, break into powder, and fill the gorge to the brim with fine particles of frozen mist, which sparkle like diamond dust. Further upward in the valley, just beyond the Bridal Veil, is Cathedral rock, and still a little further, shooting up in graceful pinnacles. The Spires. Then on the left come the Three Brothers, called by the natives Pompompasus, or Leaping Frogs; and pro- jecting from the opposite side the obelisk-formed Sen- tinel rock, which rises from the river, like a watch-tower, over three thousand feet. Across the valley from Sentinel rock, and fed exclusively by melting snows, is the great Yosemite fall, the largest in the world, if height and volume both be considered, being fifteen times as high as Niagara, and most indescribably grand. Springing from the verge of the- chasm, over a smoothly polished, perpendicular wall of fifteen hun- dred feet, and swaying in the wind like a scarf of lace, the water strikes upon a rough, inclined shelf, over which, ragged with foam, or spread out in transparent aprons, it rushes in a seiies of cascades equal to 625 feet perpendicular to the verge, when, with a final plunge of 400 feet, this most magnificent of half-mile leaps is consummated. No small portion of the water which drops from the top, and which widens and scatters in its descent, is dashed into spray before reaching the bottom; yet enough is left, even in the dryest part of the season, to send a deep, hoarse roar reverberatino; throuo;h the canon. Two miles above the Yosemite fall, the valley splits into three canons, at the head of the middle one of 12 THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. which tumbles the Merced, here a fleecy mass of foam. Down the canon to the left flows the Yenaga, and down the one to the right the Illilouette. Here, at the upper end of the valley proper, where the river branches with the branchino; chasm, in the outer anole of Yenaga canon, we find the Washington Column, and the Koyal Arches, and back of these the North Dome, a rounded mass of overlapping, concentric, granite plates. On the opposite side of Yenaga canon are the Half Dome and Cloud's Rest, and in the canon, Mirror lake. Ascending the Merced through the middle canon, besides two miles of cascades in which the river de- scends over two thousand feet, we find two magnificent falls, surrounded by the grandest scenery, — Vernal fall, which makes up in volume and impressive beauty what it lacks in height, and the Nevada fall, with the Cap of Liberty near it. The Illilouette branch of the Merced also has a beautiful fall. Thus, amid sentinels of granite, and mighty battle- ments, and musical cascades, and roaring cataracts, with its verdure-clad floor, and its time-worn walls curtained in orlistenino; g^ossamer, cold in its colors though they be of dazzling brightness, wrapped in veils of silvery mist round which in drapery of pris- matic hues Iris dances, or illuminated with airy clouds of frozen spray, Yosemite sits enthroned. Above and be3^ond, cold, silent, and white, stretches the great range on whose summit lies the snow that, melting, tunes the viols of a hundred cataracts. A fitting play-ground for the state, truly! A wonder worthy of California ! Travel the world over and you will find no counterpart; there is no wonder like our wonder. Even a Yosemite rivulet may boast its sheer half-mile of precipice. All here is grand and unique ; all of characteristic bigness except water, but Californians were never specially partial to water! I say Yosemite has no counterpart — I should rather HETCH-HETCHY. 13 say outside of California. Here we have others, so that if the great chasm of chasms should ever be lost to us, we still should not be without our wonder. There is the Little Yosemite valley above the Nevada fall, with its concentric granite structures, and the same river flowing: throuoh it in beautiful cascades; and there is the Hetch-hetchy valley, which, if a little less grand than the Yosemite, would answer well enough in place of it. The Hetch-hetchy chasm walls the Tuolumne river about sixteen miles north-west from Yosemite. It is three miles in length, from an eighth to half a mile in width, with walls not quite so high as those of the Yosemite, though the volume of water flowing into it is much greater. It extends in the same direction as Yosemite, has a perpendicular blufl* — the counterpart of El Capitan, a large stream fed by the melting snows which fall over a clifl" 1,000 feet in height; has in the Hetch-hetchy fall, 1700 feet in height, the counterpart of the Yosemite fall, with its Cathedral rock, 2,270 feet in height ; finally, at its upper end, it splits into two canons instead of three as at Yosemite. All alono; the base of the Sierra, and mounting upward to its summit, are innu- merable valleys, meadows and springs, lakes, water- falls, and cascades, eroded canons, polished domes, and volcanic spindles, finger posts of the early gold-seekers, obelisk groups, table mountains, kettles, chests, forts, caves, bridges, sugar-loaves, cathedral-peaks, and uni- corn peaks ; the which, if they should be described every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Many mighty chasms we have on this Pacific slope beside the Yosemite canon of the Merced, and the Hetch- hetchy canon of the Tuolumne. There is the Amer- ican river with its north and south forks down two or three thousand feet in hard slate. The Columbia and the Fraser rivers have their fifty miles and more of gorges several thousand feet deep ; and grander yet, the KincT river canon, with its hard granite walls 14 THE VALLEY OP CALIFORNIA, from three to seven thousand feet deep. Then, grand- est of all is the grand canon of the Colorado, 300 miles long, and from 3,000 to 6,200 feet in depth, also the result of erosion. There are likewise many other noted wonders in California, as Bower cave near by, with its cleft, per- pendicular chamber walls and subterranean lake, clell, grotto, and grove; the Alabaster stalactite cave of El Dorado on our right ; the Calaveras cave of skulls in which, when discovered, were found human skeletons coated with carbonate of lime; the Santa Cruz cave, and numerous natural bridges. Bower cave, situated in Mariposa county, consists of a crevice in the lime- stone hollowed out by water; hence it is open at the top but widens out cave-like beneath the surface. It is 133 feet long, 109 feet deep, and 80 feet wide. Three maple trees grow within it, sending their branches out through the split roof, and the water on the bottom is so transparent, that the deep cavities which are worn on either side above and below, may be distinctly followed beneath the surface to a depth of forty feet. Alabaster cave, in Placer county near Auburn, is a large canity, discovered by lime-burners while quarrying. There are two chambers, one 100 by 200 feet, and the other 25 by 100 feet, and from 4 to 20 feet in depth. Brilliant stalactites of various shades and shapes hang in irregular rows, interspersed with spaces stained with a sort of grotesque graining. One of the chambers, called the Cr3^stal Chapel, looks like an embowered arctic region petrified. Over a branch of the Trinity river nature has thrown a ledge of rocks 300 feet wide and 150 feet thick, under which runs the stream through an arch 80 feet wide and 20 feet high. Among others, Coyote creek, in Tuolumne county, is spanned by two natural bridges. To these scenes of grandeur and beauty vegetation contributes its quota. Among twenty clusters of mammoth trees, there are eight principal groves, of MAMMOTH TREES. 15 which the Mariposa and Calaveras are chief. The euca- lyptus of Australia is a taller tree than the sequoia gigantea of California — Wellingtonea gigantea these trees were once called ; but this could not be tolerated in a land where is celebrated the 4th of July, and so the name was changed to Washingtonea ; but lately, arborists say simply sequoia gigantea. Taking height, bulk, and numbers together, if not the tallest and old- est, we have here the grandest groups of forest trees upon this planet. The Mariposa grove, which, with the Yosemite valley was given by congress to the state of California for public use and recreation, is situated thirty miles from Yosemite, and contains, scattered amono- smaller trees, over 200 which are more than twelve feet in diameter. Sixty of them, measured six feet from the ground, have diameters of from 27 to 67 feet, and in heio-ht are from 187 to 270 feet. The Grizzlv Giant measures on the surface 93 feet in circumference. Through the hollow of a prostrate trunk, two horse- men ride abreast for a distance of 100 feet. One hundred feet above the ground, a trunk which is there twenty feet in diameter, puts out a branch six feet in thickness. The trees are straight, with gracefully tapering trunks, fluted bark of a light cinnamon color, and small coniform tops. In the Calaveras grove there are about 100 trees of the larger sort, thirty of which measure from 230 to 235 feet in height, and from 30 to 45 feet in circumference six feet from the ground. Five men occupied twenty -two days in felling one of them, which was accomplished by bor- ing through the trunk with pump-augers. After it was completely severed, wedges had to be driven in on one side to overturn it. This tree is estimated to have been 1,300 years old; its bark was a foot and a half thick, and upon its stump, which six feet from the ground has a diameter of twenty-seven feet, after squaring and smoothing it, was erected a pavilion for dancing and pleasure parties. 16 THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. We will now turn to quite a different scene Kound St. Helena, once a bellowing crater, and the chimney of infernal furnace-fires, the earth's crust softens, steams with internal heat, and appears with its comliness marred so as to expose the mysteries of unadorned earth ; for terraqueous nature, as well as human nature, has its unseemly side, its infirmities, and sinks of corruption. On one side of St. Helena are the steaming sulphuric springs and boiling mud of Calistoga, and on the other that pit of Acheron, the Geysers. Surely the balance of power must be pre- served, the heaven of California must have its hell; aye, let nature boast her abnormities, nor be outdone by that hungry human horde which rushed in hither and lined the streets of every mining camp with scores of hells. Three miles away one hears the puff and roar as of ocean steamers, and sees the ascending smoke and steam. In the approach there is no Point of Inspira- tion; but Hog's Backs, and steep, angular glades, down which Jehu drives with such headlong speed as makes the timid passenger to shiver, and prepares the tourist for the enjoyment Plutonic pleasures. To one gazing from the mountain brow upon this monstrosity of nature, God is not in all his thoughts, but Satan and his hissing emissaries ; here is no new heaven and earth, but a nether realm, with sty- gian odors that offend the nostrils. He who first discovered the beauties of Yosemite was struck speechless as at the portal of paradise. The hunter Elliots, who in 1847 chased a bear into the valley of the Pluton, spying the Devil's canon turned and fled, and on reaching his companions ex- claimed: " Boys I I have found hell I " Around the cool deep crystal waters of Clear Lake are numerous soda springs, sulphur banks, and borax deposits. Down the western slope of the western ridge that bounds this region, in the heart of a tangled forest once we.l stocked with game, flows the Pluton river, a THE GEYSERS. 17 merry tumbling stream from twenty to thirty feet in in width, formerly almost alive with trout, and shaded by the foliage of overhanging vines and branches. At rio'ht anoles to the Pluton canon, from its northern side, is a gorore about half a mile in leno^th, and but a few rods in unequal width, with steep walls rising from 50 to 150 feet. This little off-shoot is called the Devil's canon. From its entrance at the Pluton canon its uneven surface rises, and at the upper end it divides in two, and mingles with the hills. A little creek with minia- ture falls and cascades runs through it, whose waters at their source are pure and cold, but which as they descend soon become contaminated by their surround- ings. Sometimes a partial footpath winds by the stream, between the rocks and mobile earth, but often it is undermined or sw^ept away. The entrance is but a narrow rocky pass, roofed by fallen, but yet grow- ing trees, adorned with fantastic roots, and partially covered with debris and creeping plants. This en- trance is called Proserpine's Grotto, and be^^ond it the canon widens a little. The scene within is barren and ghastly. Bottom and sides are skinned of every sign of vegetation, and scoriated with sulphur, salts, and slimy deposits. Around the upper portion of the sides, the earth assumes a reddish hue, below which it is marbled with the ghastly colors of festering flesh, patches of pale ashen and white, patches of green and slaty stain, yellow sulphur snow and black sulphur root, with all the intermediate shades of death and dissolution. Hot springs burst forth from hot ground, spitting, sputtering, hissing, and panting in unmanageable wrath. Through whistling steam and sickening sul- phur, yawn horrible mouths like the gates of Aver- nus. It is as utterly infernal a place as can well be imagined, lurid and murky, and sickening with heavy vapor. In every hole and corner this model Pande- monium seems inhabited by shadowy fiends, and every fiend to be doing his best to render his little Cal. Int. Poc. 2 18 THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. crevice the particular hell of the place. On the bottom and along the sides are two hundred grinning mouths spurting liquids of every hue. Into this sewer of desolation and dire combustion, midst hissing vapor and the stench of decomposing drugs, vomit white blue and black sulphur springs, boiling alum, epsoni salts, and magnesia springs ; iron and soda springs; conglomerate and nondescript medicated mixtures, until the little rivulet, nauseated by the vile compound, turns whejash in color, emits a faint gurgle, tosses feverishly on its rocky bed, and then slinks along its slimy way. Round stinking pools that fill the air with their fetid breath, are incrusta- tions of iron, tartaric acid, copperas, and verdigris. The clammy ground, crispy with sulphuric crystals, rough with scoriae, quakes and sends forth noxious gases. Waves of sulphuric seas thump against the thin crust of the seemingly hollow earth ; jets of liquid black leap hissing from blue-vitriol mud, and a cavernous roar echoes through the pitchy glen. Nature, sick with sore boils, eaten by acids, palsied and jaundiced, is smothered with alopathic abomina- tions. Pass Proserpine's Grotto and ascend the canon. Pick your way carefully and plant your feet in the footprints of the guide, else your legs may suffer for the neglect. First there is an Iron and Alum spring, with a temperature of 97° Fahrenheit ; then the Medicated Geyser bath, containing iron, sulphur, epsora salts and magnesia; Eye Water spring, om- nipotent against ophthalmia ; and in the order men- tioned Boiling Alum and sulphur spring, Black Sul- phur spring, Epsom Salts spring, Boiling Black sulphur spring. The largest spring is the Witches' Cauldron, situated two-thirds of the distance up the canon, and the loudest the Steamboat Spring at tlie head of the canon. The Witches' Cauldron is a hole or sink six or seven feet in diameter, of unknown depth, and with a temperature of 292° Fahrenheit. VALLEY OF THE PLUTON. 19 Seething and swashing like a troublous witches broth stirred by subterranean imps, with no visible outlet, its thick black liquid bubbling sometimes to a height of three or four feet, the bank near by begrimed like a chimney-back and just above blooming with beauti- ful sulphur crystals, Dante himself could not conceive a more perfect stygian pool. This black vapory pit has been called also the Devil's Punch Bowl. It is an insult to his Majesty, who knows full well how to brew good punch. Every spring has its voice, its own peculiar strain ; its busy babble, or surly grumble, or hollow moan, or impotent sputter, or testy hiss, or angry roar, or wild shriek, its vain spoutmgs or gleesome gurgle, and throuo;hout the ao-es the infernal choir ceases not to deliver its united and discordant strains. But loud above all voices and high above all sounds are the puffmgs and roaring pulsations of the Steamboat Geyser, which sends from the hillside in several fitful volumes, through orifices from an inch to a foot in diameter, columns of hot vapor to heights of from 50 to 200 feet. The sounds of which the name is expressive, are like those proceeding from the escape pipe of an engine. Tlie roar is continuous, though broken by puffs and louder bursts, while all around from tiny holes in the spongy ground jets of hot steam shoot upward, with a force and fury significant of the contending elements beneath the surface. Then there is the Intermittent Geyser, which belches boiling water spasmodically, sometimes fifteen feet and again only three or four feet; the Devil's Ink- stand, which emits through a small aperture a black liquid that may be used for writing, and whose stain is indelible; the Devil's Grist-mill with its sputtering clatter ; the Devil's Kitchen, the Devil's Bake-oven, the Devil's Wash-tub, the Devil's Tea-kettle, the Devil's Pulpit, and the devil knows what else. All along the banks of this Lethe stream, as you climb, fainting with the heat and smells, between slippery rocks and 20 THE VAI.LEY OF CALIFORNIA over the seething uncertain ground, your blistering feet perhaps ankle deep in mineral deposits, and lift- ing themselves spasmodically from the heated earth, 3^ou may see pools of slaty swash exhaling a dock- mud stench, steam whizzins; thro'uo'h fissures, and black compounds belching from slag and clinker- rimmed holes ; at which strange doino;s Helena ixroans afresh, and fallen forest trees ten miles distant shudder and turn to stone. Here, as everywhere in dealing with the unknown, men speculate upon the causes of these phenomena, some holding that they are produced by volcanic action, others by purely chemical forces. Side by side, only a few inches apart, are hot springs and cold springs, boil- ing springs and springs whose waters are undisturbed. An iron pipe terminating in a whistle inserted in one of these steam orifices, sends forth a shrill shriek. On the Pluton is the Indian spring, whither the na- tives, who feared to enter the Devil's canon, have re- sorted from time immemorial to bathe in its healing waters. There they erected a sweating-house, and thither they carried their sick. Near tlie hot black sulphur bath, which they have made, flows a stream of clear cold water, into which, after their fashion, they plunge alternately. On one side of the Devil's canon is the Mountain of Fire, honey-combed with dead geysers, and stratified with sulphur, epsom salts, copperas, nitre, ammonia, tartaric acid, cinnabar, magnesia, and yellow ochre. Near by are the vent holes of a crater from which the steam whistles with great force. In early morning, before the overhang- ing vapors are dissipated by the rising sun, the gorge is filled with steam, which rolls ofl" in huge banks be- fore the wind. Above and beyond the edges of this Tartarean pool, round which struggle pale sickly trees, in the valley of the Pluton, and sometimes ap- proaching coyishly to the very verge of the heated waters, mountains, hills, and ravines are overspread with a covering of fresh verdure and wild flowers. SAN FRANCISCO BAY. 21 made all the more luxuriant and charming by the warmth of tliese infernal fires ; and to complete the picture, at sunrise a weird rainbow, refracted from sulphuric vapor, hovers in clear prismatic hues over the canon, and loses itself in the glistening emerald at either end. Turn then away, happy in the thought that nature inflicts on man few such insio-hts into her sorceries, but rather veils in beauty the mysterious chemical processes of her laboratory. The great sink in the Coast Range, which lies before us near the border of the ocean, and into which the waters of the entire valley are drained, is another marvel of nature, though utilized and made common by man. But for the Golden Gate fissure or cleft, which abruptly cuts in two the continuous coast line, large areas in the interior would be perpetually under water. Were the channel throuoh this bluff-bound gateway less deep, so that the ocean's ebb and flow should not be felt within, San Francisco bay would be a lake. But better far as it is, a lake-like and well- nigh land-locked harbor, larger than Rio de Janeiro, and fairer than Naples; with all the glowing haze and delicious sweetness of the famous Neapolitan air, but without its subtle softness and enervating lano-uor. Mount some warm misty morning to the top of Yerba Buena island, which stands midway between the cove to which it gave its name and Oakland point, and the prospect thence will scarcely fail to kindle the eye, to swell the heart, and awaken long- ings for other scenes. From this island's base spreads out a mimic ocean, shaped like an arrow-point, sixty miles in length by four or five in width, whose radiant waters flhig blick the rays of the morning sun, or ripple under the influence of wind and tide, and from whose borders, wavy hills roll up, smooth and round as the bust of Canova's Venus, or dimpled like a merry school-girl's face. These, interspersed with gen- 22 THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. tier slopes, and radiating valleys and ridges, and minia- ture plains, through which thread numerous stream- lets, were not long since the home of the prowling panther and marauding coyote, of wild-cat, bear, and deer. Myriads of wild-fowl and sea-birds fished in these waters, and quarreled, filling the air with their shrill cries; while within the bay and without the por- tal, and for 3000 miles along the shore, were seal-rocks, with crawling monsters barking, enjoying their siesta, or holding conference like sinful souls in purgatory. Northward there is a maze of undulating elevations, domes ridges and peaks, their outline toward the ocean delicately penciled against the sky, and further inland in the distance is a background of nebulous mountains, the landscape lighted in places by unseen waterSj and all painted in soft aerial colors of varied depth and tone. Toward the south the ridges on either side recede; the water broadens at first, then narrowing, melts away in hazy perspective. Beyond is the great sea, smiling in azure or fretting in impa- tient green and white, with its silence-breathing surf singing ocean lullabies to the sleepy hills, or rolling in from the horizon huge waves, which, dashing them- selves aofainst their shore-limits, fall back foamino; at their own impotency. Thus sculptured in the heart of the Coast Range, some parts of the bay are narrow and deep like a highland loch, with bluffs and promontories ; in otlier parts the water spreads out, and encircles large islands, ■ — Angel, Alcatraz, and Yerba Buena, — or washes a diminutive beach. Its seaward shore is splintered into points and estuaries; on the opposite side are coves and graceful crescents ; while round the northern end, where empties the Sacramento, are bays carved within bays, straits and deep- flowing channels, and sentinel islands and embankments. The northern side of the Golden Gate is a steep, dark, reddish wall, six or eiq-ht hundred feet in heiglit. From the top of this wall the hills mount and roll off THE PEERLESS. 23 in warm yellowish-green surges round Tamalpais, deepening into purple as they rise in graceful alpine outline and mingle with the clouds. Opposite this bank the waters of the bay and ocean are separated by a ridge of argillaceous sandstone, severed at the Golden Gate so as to form a peninsula some six miles at the northern end, and broadening into open high- lands toward the south. Upon these so lately sand- blown hills, freckled with tough, wind-defying shrubbery, beneath whose branches quail and rabbits loved to hide, and birds and rivulets sana* too-ether, is now being planted the commercial metropolis of the Farthest West; while all around this favored bay, blustering in its strength and radiant in its beauty, and already white with the sails of every ocean, in- dustries are springing up, towns and cities are being built, and a race of men and women developing which some clay will make the nations marvel. The bay of Kieselarke has been called golden because of its shin- ing sands; but far more proper may our beautiful sheet which from the first so gladdened the hearts of the followers of St Francis rejoice in that name, for not only are its shores golden, but its hills and skies, its commerce and its industries, its towns and people are orolden. o Fair California ! clad in verdant spring vesture or resting in arid robes under a metallic sky ; voluptuous in thy half-tropic bed, in thy sunlit valley warmed with the glow of bronze and rosy lustre, redolent with wild flowers, and billowy with undulating parks and smooth corruoated mounds and sWellinof heio-hts, with wavmg grass and fragrance-breathing forests, capti- vating the mhid, and ravishing the senses with thy bewitching charms, and smiling plenty in alternate seasons of refreshing rains and restful dryness; with thy lofty snow-capped peaks, and metal-veined Sierra, and amethystine smooth-browed hills bathed hi purple mists and musical with leaping streamlets and songs 24 THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. of birds; with tliy corridors of sundered stone, and glacier valleys silvered with moonlit lakes, and cool refreshing basins filled with transparent blue; with thy boisterous alpine streams, and quiet lowland rivers, and sluofofish waters wandering- throuo-h char- rcterless sloughs; with thy scraggy scattering oaks, and tangled undergrowth, mirrored in crystalline pools, and flowering shrubs, and mighty sable forests; with thy sunlight soft and hazy, and air sea-scented and sparkling yet mellow, stimulating yet restful, and pure and sweet as that which blows from Araby the Blest, yet strong withal, wooing the sick and care-laden, cooling the vein-swollen brow, thrilling the blood with ocean's stimulants and giving new life, not stifling it; with thy native men and beasts, and birds and fishes, and fields of native grain, all hitherto unmarred by man, all fresh as from the hand of the creator revel- ling in primeval joy and fragrance, while the valley murmurs its contentment, and the forest cypress nods its sable plume; crimson purple and violet in thy blushing beauty veiled in misty gauze that rises fresh and glistening from the sun-beaten ocean, and fills the heavens thick with spray or whirls off* in eddying clouds round the mountain tops, breaking from mina- ret and spire into long streamlets edged by burnished sunlight ; voluptuous thus, or fierce in thy wild unrest, in th}' lashed energies fiery as Achilles, whatever be thy mood or circumstance, thou art a song of nature ringing an ever changing melody, thou art the smile that lit Jehovah's face when he saw that it was good ! CHAPTER II. THREE CEXTURIES OF WILD TALK ABOUT GOLD IN CALI- FORNIA.— 1537-1837. Thrusting, toiling, wailing, moiling, Frowning, preaching — such a riot! Each with never-ceasing labor. Whilst he thinks he cheats his neighbor, Cheating his own heart of quiet. — Shelley. In those clays of unbridled adventure, when man was permitted to prey upon his fellow-man, and when the many-sided world was as yet but partially known to civilization, gold was the chiefest good that strange lands could yield, and hence every strange land, in the imagination or desire of its discoverer, abounded in gold. So it was that California, e"ven before it was seen by any Spaniard, was reputed, without reason, rich in gold. What stories Cabeza de Vaca had to tell, when he arrived from the Mexican gulf at Culia- can, in 1537, of the vast wealth of this whole northern legion! As to the truth of the report, it must be true, for it was the people of the country who had informed him, though in language that he did not understand, and of realms of which they knew noth- ing. From the very first a strong conviction possessed the minds of the conquerors of Mexico that the west- ern coast, particularly toward the north, was rich in gold and pearls; and so all through the century suc- cessive expeditions were sent to the gulf of California, and to the peninsula. That most reverend and truthful man, Francis Fletcher, preacher to the pirate Drake, who, because God commanded Adam to subdue the earth, felt it (25) 26 THREE CENTURIES OF WILD TALK. his duty, as minister of God and son of Adam, to go abroad on this earth, and kill and steal to the full limit of his capabilities; and who felt it likewise his duty "to register the true and whole history of that his voyage, with as great indifferency of afiection as a history doth require, and with the plain evidence of truth," — this right rare and thrice worthy gentleman, as he would say of his captain, saw strange things in California ; that is to say, things strange to those who know California, but credible enough three hundred years ago to those who were never nearer to the spot than its antipode. In July of 1579, the pirate, as his preacher says, was met by peculiar and nipping colds. The natives, he affirms, "vsed to come shivering to vs in their warme furres, crowding close together, body to body, to receiue heate one of another." Oh! "how vnhandsome and deformed appeared the face of the earth it selfe ! " Birds dared not leave their nests after the first egg was laid until all were hatched; but nature had favored these poor fowl, so that they might not die in the operation. The causes of these phenomena he next explains on scientific principles. Because Asia and America are here so near together, and by reason of the high mountains and the like, "hence comes the generall squalidnesse and barren- nesse of the countrie; hence comes it that, in the middest of their summer the snow hardly departeth euen from their very doores, but is neuer taken away from their hils at all ; hence come those thicke mists and most stinking fogges." Inland the country was better. "Infinite was the company of very large and fat Deere, which there we sawe by thousands . . , besides a multitude of a strange kind of Conies . . . his tayle like the tayle of a Rat." The savages were exceedingly edified by the words of the preacher, by his psalm-singing, and his reading of the scriptures ; so much so, that when the gentle pirates took their leave, "with sighes and sorrowings, with heauy hearts and grieued minds, they powred out wofuU complaints THE PIRATE'S PREACHER. 27 and moanes, with bitter teares and wringing of their haads, tormenting theniselues." This was exceedingly Hke the California Digger, as was also their king, before whom on his appearing, "came a man of a large body and goodly aspect, bearing the Septer or royall mace, . . . whereupon hanged two crownes, a bigger and a lesse, with three chaines of a maruellous length," and so on. It was with difficulty that the English- men prevented these people from worshipping them, and offering sacrifice as unto gods ; and the eagerness with which they accepted Elizabeth for their sovereign was pleasant to see. But about gold ? " There is no part of earth," says the preacher, "here to be taken up wherein there is nol a reasonable quantity of gold or silver." And again: "The earth of the country seemed to promise rich veins of gold and silver, some of the ore being constantly found on digging." Even a school-sjirl would recoa;nize in this the extravaofance of fiction. Climates change ; simple savages might mistake Drake's buccaneers for gods ; but if gold and silver ever existed amid the rocks and hills in the neighborhood of Drake bay, the world has yet to know it. In his Noticia de la California, Miguel Venegas, speaking of the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino along the shore of Upper California in 1602, draws attention to the royal cedula of the 19th of August, 1606, granting Vizcaino permission to explore California, and inserts that document in the first volume of his his- tory. The king says, referring to Vizcaino's voyage of 1602, "que descubrio el dlcho Sebastian Vizcaino en la costa en mas de ochocientas leguas, que anduvo, se informo, y que todos decian, haver la tierra adentro grandes poblaciones, y plata, y oro," — that the said Vizcaino was told by the Indians along the whole coast of 800 leao-ues which he discovered, of laro;e set- tlements in the interior, and of silver and gold. " Whence Vizcaino is inclined to believe," the king continues, "that great riches may be discovered, es- 28 THREE CENTURIES OF WILD TALK. pecially as in some parts of the land veins of metals are to be seen ; " — porque en algunas partes en la tierra firme descnbrian betas de metales. Thus, there is little wonder that very early the rumor was abroad that there was gold in California, though without any foundation, as the interior had never yet been visited by white men. As far from the truth as the preacher's story and the king's story, is the statement passed from one writer to another without comment, that Loyola Ca- bcllo, a priest of the mission of San Jose, bay of San Francisco, on returning to Spain published, in 1690, a work on Alta California, in >vhich the existence of gold in placers was mentioned. I do not know whom to hold responsible for starting this fiction, though one George M. Evans has been active in circulating it. We can only wonder that so many respectable persons have repeated it as fact. In the first place no such book was ever published. Secondly, in 1G90, and for nearly a century thereafter, there was no San Jose mission on the Bay of San Francisco, though there was a San Jose dtl Cabo,.near Cape St Lucas. Lastly, if there was such a man, and such a book, and such a place, there was no gold there. Fortunately for mankind, believing a thing, or fan- cying a belief in it, be it never so sincerely or strongly, does not make it true ; nor is seeing always believing, when perforce, one must see through the eyes of sail- ors, whose statements are proverbially unreliable. "De Gualle saw many islands eastward of Japan in latitude 32° and 33°," says old Arthur Dobbs; and sailing further east, he saw many populous and rich islands, some with volcanoes, which abounded with gold, cotton, and fish . . . Gemelli mentions rocks seen in latitude 30°, and an island said to be rich in gold ; and also another in latitude 32°, called Rica de Plata, which from their names and abounding in gold, may be supposed to be well inhabited." By how many have these gold bearing islands been DIVERS DECEPTIONS. 29 since visited, and how much metal has been taken from them ? Perhaps twenty times the following passage -in Shelvocke, A Voyage Round the World in 1719-22, by no means a rare or remarkable book, has been pointed out to me by men whose superficial investigations have led them to believe that gold was known to exist in California nearlv two centuries aoo. Here is the passage : " The eastern coast of that part of California which I had a sight of, appears to be mountainous, barren and sandy, and very like some parts of Peru ; but nevertheless, the soil about Puerto Seguro, and very likely in most of the valleys, is a rich, black mould, which as you turn it fresh up to the sun ap- pears as if intermingled with gold dust, some of which we endeavored to wash and purify from the dirt; but though we were a little prejudiced against the thoughts that it could be possible that this metal should be so promiscuously and universally mhigled with common earth, yet we endeavored to cleanse and wash the earth from some of it, and the more we did the more it appeared like gold ; but in order to be further satisfied, I brought away some of it which we lost in our confusions in China." Now in the first place this navigator— whose map by the way shows the two Californias together as an island — never was in Alta California at all; and sec- ondly, he may or he may not have seen particles of something resembling gold at Cape St Lucas, the only pomt at which he touched. In a word, what- ever he saw or said has nothing whatever to do with the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills. And yet I have seen printed in more than one Pacific coast newspaper this statement of Shelvocke's without any reference to the fact, and apparently without the knowledge of it, that the California referred to was not Upper California. At the time Shelvocke was engaged in his circum- navigation, the Hudson's Bay Company was explor- 30 THREE CENTURIES OF WILD TALK. ing to the westward. Almost as much as gold-pro- ducino; mountams the world wanted mter-oceanic communication. From Patagonia, northward, nearly to the land's end, the seaboard had been searched in vain for a passage ; only the part between Hudson bay and the Pacific remaining yet unexplored. In 1719 two vessels, the Albany Frigate, Captain George Barlow, and the Discovery, Captain David Vaughn, were fitted out for the purpose of examining the the western side of Hudson bay, and passing thence througrh the strait of Anian into the Pacific. This strait, the discover}'^ of which was so eagerly de- sired, was believed to exist ; it was even laid down in charts, and there were some who said that they had seen it, others that they had entered it, though all the while it existed only in imagination. James Knight was given command of the expedition, and was "with the first opportunity of wind and weather, to depart from Gravesend on his intended voyage, and by God's permission, to find out the strait of Anian, in order to discover gold and other valuable commodities to the northward." Mr Knight entered upon the task with enthusiam, though then eighty years of age, and " procured, and took with him some large iron-bound chests to hold gold- dust and other valuables, which he fondly flattered himself were to be found in those parts." Not hear- ing from the expedition, many conjectured, as Samuel Hearne remarks, "that Messrs Knight and Barlow had found that passage, and had gone through it into the South Sea by the way of California," and it was not known until fifty years later, when Hearne was undertaking his Coppermine river expedition, that they had not found the Anian strait, and had not filled their iron-bound chests with the gold of Califor- nia, but had all been lost in Hudson bay. The Shining Mountains — as the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range were called by those who wrote geography a hundred years ago — were deemed from GOLD IN THE SHINIXG MOUNTAINS. 31 current reports something wonderful long before their treasures were disclosed. " This extraordinary range of mountains," says Jonathan Carver in 1766, "is cal- culated to be more than 3,000 miles in length, with- out any very considerable intervals, which I believe surpasses any thing of the kind in the other quarters of the globe. Probably in future ages they may be found to contain more riches in their bowels than those of Indostan and Malabar, or that are produced on the Golden coast of Guinea ; nor will I except even the Peruvian mines." No little excitement occurred in Mexico about the time of the expulsion of *the Jesuits, who, it was re- ported, had found extensive deposits of gold on the peninsula of California, and had concealed the fact from the government. It was in the rivers, in the rocks, and in the soil, people said, and the supposed concealment as to the spot containing the precious metal, on the part of the Jesuits, tended in no wise toward delaying their enforced departure. To prove the matter Jose Galvez, marquis of Sonora, accom- panied by Miguel Jose de Azanza," in 1769 passed over into California and instituted a search. A few weeks of fruitless endeavor satisfied Azanza, who returned to Mexico, saying that the marquis was insane to continue the search ; for the expression of which opinion Azanza was incarcerated, and kept in pi'ison for a time. Galvez found nothing, however, though the Jesuits afterward affirmed in France that it was true they had found gold. This was probably said in order to occasion regret in the minds of those who had caused their expulsion. All this of course is irrele- vant to the present purpose, except that in the loose and general reference made to the event, it is not stated, and often not known, that the Jesuits were never in Upper California, and that the search of Galvez and Azanzfc was confined strictly to the penin- sula of Lower California. Such facts, mutilated and misstated, floating in the 32 THREE CENTURIES OF WILD TALK, minds of ignorant persons wlio receive tliem at second or twentietli hand, lead to remarks like the following by Mr Simpson, author of Three Weeks in the Gold Regions, 'published in 1848. *' It is also known that an expedition was fitted out by the governor of Sonora during the last century, which owing to various dis- courao-ements failed. ~ . . . /t In his Travels in Mexico, when near the mouth of the Colorado in 1826, Lieutenant Hardy says: "The sand is full of a o'litteringr sort of tinsel, which shines beautifully when the sun is upon it. It is common all over Sonora, and is, I imagine, nothing more than broken laminae of talc, the, surface of which being probably in a state of decomposition, the original color is changed to that of copper and gold. It crumbles easily between the fingers, and cannot there- fore be metallic ; but its delusive appearance may pos- sibly have given rise to the reports, which were spread, as it is supposed, by the Jesuits, who formerly endeavored to make an establishment upon the river, of gold dust being intermixed with the sand." Fay- ette Robinson thinks the Jesuit priests were aware of the existence of gold in California, meaning Lower California, but carefully diverted the attention of the natives from it in favor of mission labor. Osio in his manuscript Historia de California expresses the opinion that the Franciscans were too busy with conversions to ascertain whether the river sands held gold. The recent conjectures, he says, that they knew of gold are not probable, because the secret could not have been kept among so many. Since 1775 the Mexicans have met with silver in the vicinity of the Colorado, and some say with small de- posits of placer gold, but with none that would yield profitable returns. Very soon after the organization of the missions in Lower California, converted Indians sent into the upper country to persuade the natives there to listen to the teachings of the padres, talked, on their return, of the shining sand that they saw in SHINING SANDS OF CALIFORNIA. 33 the streams, and in the ravines which they had traversed. But so common were these reports, so familiar were tlie conquerors with the presence of precious metals everywhere within the subjugated domain, that a sprinkling more or less, here or there, was little regarded. Nevertheless, it is reported that later they built furnaces, and brought sand from the seashore to be used in smelting antimonial silver lead. A map was made of southern California in 1775 by a priest showing the explorations of the Jesuits on the Colorado river for several hundred miles, and thence to the Tulare valley. J. H. Carson is the author of a little book, printed in Stockton in 1852, entitled Early Recollections of the Mines, and a Descrip- tion of the Great Tulare Valley, and worth fifty times its weight m gold. This writer was informed that in the Mexican archives was a letter from a priest, dated at one of the Jesuit missions in 1776, notifying the government that while searching the mountains for mission sites he and his confreres had met with pure silver in masses weighing several tons, and that they had forbidden all mention of the matter under pain of excommunication and death, lest a sudden influx of population should destroy their schemes for con- version. Upon the strength of this assertion Wright and his associates fitted out an expedition under a Mr Hoyt, who proceeding to California from Mexico, in due time sent back a letter with rich spechnens of silver ore, almost solid, as Mr Wright declared. Neither Hoyt or any of the party returned, nor were they ever heard from; and it was supposed that they were murdered by the natives. Exploring at a much later period in the vicinity of Moore creek, Carson encountered a shaft sunk apparently twelve or twenty years before. Part of the windlass was still standing, though in a state of decay, and the place agreed with the description given by Hoyt. When Carson ques- tioned the natives about it, he was told that the shaft had been sunk by Mexicans who had been in that Cal. Int. Poc. 3 34 THREE CENTURIES OF WILD TALK. ^ neighborhood but who had since died ; the gentle savages failed to mention the manner of their taking off. Referring to the Diccionario Geografico-Historio de las Indias Occidentales o America of Antonio de Alcedo, published in Madrid in 1786-9, we find stated that in California, ^' provincia de la America Septentrional, y la ultima parte de ella en lo descubierto acia el norte " are many wonders. Strange animals are there, and some that the Spaniards introduced, which have multiplied enormously. There are insects, snakes, tarantulas, and ants without number, but no fleas, bed-bugs, or chegoes. As prone to mendacity as I have ever found Mr Dunbar, I was not prepared to meet in his Romance of the Age so bold a misrepresentation as that Alcedo " positively asserts the existence of gold in California, even in lumps of five to eight pounds," and that in face of the plain statement : "No se han des- cubierto minas ; pero hay bastantes indicios de que existen de todos metales." At Alizal, near Monterey, silver is said to have been found in 1 802. Remarking how deep benea theth surface lay the precious metals in the interior of north- ern Mexico Humboldt, after his visit in 1803, ex- pressed the opinion that toward the north gold might be found in large quantities near the surface. Knowledge of the existence of furnaces, used in the smelting of silver ore, in the southeastern part of California, or in the Colorado river region, is vaguely traced back to 1808. An exploring party from Stock- ton in 1860, in search of silver lodes, met in the vicinity of these furnaces a party of Mexicans with like intentions. With the Mexicans was an ancient aboriginal, Jose el Venadero he was called, one hun- dred years of age, who stated that these furnaces were in use when Mexico first threw off the yoke of Spain, fifty-two years ago. He was a mission Indian at the time, and the Spanish soldiers stationed at the furnaces to protect the workmen from the natives were with- SUTTER AND THE RUSSIANS. 35 drawn during the revolution. A large body of natives, headed by his brother who was a chief, then attacked and killed the miners, and the priests who were with them ; since which time the lode has not been worked, and the place had been forgotten by all except those engaged in the massacre. M. S. Brockway saw there in 1851 veins of antimonial silver. Count Scala writing in the Nouvelles Annates des Voyages, in 1854, asserts that although local tradition has not preserved any souvenir of the excursions of the Russians into the auriferous regions which have since been of such value to California, yet there are unanswerable proofs that several officers of the Rus- sian company have at different times, between the 3' ears 1812 and 1841, procured a considerable quantity of metal from the native tribes of Yuba and Cliico. " Nous montreros tout a I'heure," he goes on to say, " que c'est aux Russes de Bodega que les Americains sont redevables de 1' heureuse decouverte qui leur donne aujourd' hui la faculte d'etendre leur souver- ainete dans la Nou\elle-Grenade et le Nicaragua, et d'imposer leur influence a toutes les republiques es- pagnoles du Pacifique." In proof of his premise Scala's chain of argument is not in every link consis- tent with fact. I will give it for what it is worth. He does not know how it occurred, or what might have been the nature of the services which Sutter had rendered to the government of Archangel, but certain it is that one day the captain arrived in Cali- fornia well recommended to the authorities at Ross and Bodetja. M. Gorieff, a rich merchant established at Yakoutsk, pretends to have shown him in 1838 or 1839 a score of "kilos de lingots d'or et de pepites," which he had gathered five years before in the Sac- ramento valley, while on an excursion with the ciboleros of the company. And Gorieff- counselled Sutter to devote himself exclusively to the investigation of these auriferous lands. However that might have been, Scala continues, "no one then in California was igno- 36 THREE CENTURIES OF WILD TALK. rant of the existence of gold in the Sierra Nevada districts. The Creoles had often bought it from the Indian hunters, and in the time of the Spaniards the missions had secretly procured it in large quantities. The only obstacles which for a century had hindered the working of these mines by white men were the well known ferocity of the wild Indians, and ignorance of the exact position of the placers. After having made several excursions in the country pointed out to him by M. Gorieff, Sutter went to the governor at Monterey and asked a grant of the lands. This grant, which comprised an area measuring eighty kilometres in length and sixteen in width, was traversed by the route from San Francisco to the American posts on the Columbia river. It was a virgin region, abounding in game, profusely watered, rich in pasturage, and surrounded by mild-mannered tribes. There Sutter established himself as trapper, hunter, and ao-riculturist. When in 1841 the Rus- sians evacuated Ross they sold to him their material, by which means he became strong enough success- fully to withstand the provincial government. Thus was due to the Russians, the conclusion is, the gold discovery in California, and her consequent greatness." Here ends Count Scala, whom I have translated accurately, if somewhat freely. It is possible, even probable, that the Russians of Ross and Bodega knew of the existence of gold in the Sierra foothills. They had every opportunity for acquiring such knowledge, being in frequent commu- nication with the inhabitants of that region; and there was no special inducement for them to notify the Mexicans of the fact. But as for Sutter being aware beforehand of the existence of gold in the vicinity of New Helvetia, I am sure that he was not ; first, because he told me so, and secondly, be- cause, if he had known it his line of conduct would have been different. Further than this, it is not true that the Indios bravos were so fierce as successfully SCALA AND SUTTER. 37 to guard their gold from the Russians. Tliey were not fierce at all, but rather as Sutter found them *' aux moeurs douces et faciles.' Holinski tells of a laborer, a servant of the Rus- sian American Company in California, who one day went to the commandant with the story that he had seen gold in the bed of a stream, and advised that a party be sent to examine it. The man was told to mind his own business. Add to the statement of Scala the testimony of Governor Alvarado, given in the first volume of his Historia de California, and it is almost certain that the Russians of Ross and Bodega were aware of the ex- istence of gold in the valley of California as early as 1814. During: the administration of Governor Ar- guello, Alvarado says that gold was found in the possession of a Russian, El Loco Alexis he was called. The man was in jail at Monterey at the time, impris- oned with three others, perhaps for drunkenness, or' for killing beaver, or, more likely, for being Russians. Alexis would not tell how or where he obtained the gold, and as he was shortly afterward sent to Sitka, nothing came of it. Alvarado does not hesitate to assert further that "we well knew of the existence of gold deposits on the slopes of the northern mountains, but the Indians, who were so much more numerous than we, prevented our exploring in that direction." Because Phillips, in his Mineralogy, edition of 1818, spoke of gold in California, many thought he had knowledge of the existence of that metal in the Sierra foothills. In the possession of the San Francisco Society of Pioneers is a stone tablet, indicating the discovery of gold on Feather river in 1818. It was presented to the society by W. F. Stewart in 1868, and is held in great estimation by the wise men of the day. The stone is of hard, yellowish, sandy texture, about twelve inches in length by an average of three inches in width, 38 THREE CENTURIES OF ^^LD TALK. and one inch thick. It is flat, and on one side are deeply cut, in legible letters, these words : 1818 GOLD CAVE IN THIS M. SHIP LODES L M This cabalistic stone is said to have been picked up on the west branch of Feather river, in 1850, by William Thomas, and given by him to A. J. Pithan, of San Jose, in 1851. Mr Thomas, after diligent search, was unable to find the gold cave. Discussions of possibilities or probabilities are wholly useless. The chances are a hundred to one, in my opinion, that some miner of 1849 cut the letters for pastime, and then threw the stone away, or gave it to some one to make a good story out of. And now comes Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo with similar testimony, that the Spaniards in California knew of gold, but could not profit by their knowledge on account of the Indians. In the first volume of his Historia de California he further states that, in 1824, while Captain Pablo de la Portilla was encamped at San Emilio, Lieutenant Antonio del Valle, who had a stock of beads, blankets, and tobacco, traded his goods with the Chauchilas and Jozimas for fourteen thousand dollars in gold, "chispas de oro," emphasiz- ing his statement by the further assertion that " el teniente del valle trajo el oro a Monterey, y lo he tenido en mis manos ; y por e&o respondo de la verdad del hecho." Jose de Jesus Pico, still living in San Luis Obispo, asserts that Father Martinez, the minister of the mis- sion of that name, gave him and three fellow-soldiers, in 1829, twenty ounces of gold in one ounce balls, and that he believes the father must have picked it up at the place named San Jose, near the mission. He suspected that several Spaniards were for a time SOME PROPHECIES. 39 secretly engaged at the mission in refining gold and silver, because the father had many flasks of quicksil- ver, as well as instruments and materials for refining those metals. Jedediah Smith is accredited with havino- found placer gold near Mono lake, on the way back from California, whither he had led a party from the Salt Lake country in 1825. Thomas Sprague, writing to Edmond Randolph, in 1860, states that he was well aware of the fact, and that the spot where the gold was found was on the route to Salt lake, and east by north from Mono lake. Quite a quantity of this gold, Smith brought back with him to the American Fur Company's encampment on Green river. His partners were so pleased with his success that they induced him to return to the gold field, in which attempt he lost his life. The defeat of the party by Indians dis- couraged the company, and they abandoned their search for gold. Mr Sprague's statement as to the route of Smith to and from California is only partially correct. As further evidence that gold was believed to exist in California, may be mentioned certain laws and reg- ulations framed by the Mexican government. Refer- ring to the Vallejo Coleccion de Documentos, we find that on the 19th of July, 1828, President Guadalupe Vic- toria transmitted to the governor of California a decree of the Mexican congress equally applicable to all the Mexican states and territories. All previous decrees prohibiting the export of gold and silver bullion were revoked, and states were permitted to collect duties. Bars, quoits, and rails must be numbered and stamped with weight and fineness. Another decree, of the 13th of September, lays down the rules for the expor- tation of gold and silver bullion. Permits might be obtained by presenting petition and invoices at the custom-house. Then the formalities prescribed for the authorities of the custom-house are given at great length, besides a number of stipulations and penalties. 40 THREE CENTURIES OF WILD TALK. Upon the assertion of M. Duflot de Mofras mainly rests the discovery of gold at San Isidro, in San Diego county by a man from Guanajuato about 1828. " A San Isidro," he says in the first volume of his Ex- ploration du Territoire de V Oregon, des Californies, et de la Mer VermeiUe, Paris, 1844, "h, quatorze lieues dans Test de San Diego, on trouve des mines d'or et d'ar- gent qui furent exploitees il y a quinze ans par un homme de Guanajuato." Padre Viader, a priest at Mission Santa Clara, is said to have possessed the gift of prophecy. Two years before it occurred, he foretold the drought of 1829, and advised the people to prepare for it, and plant double the usual area. He likewise predicted the discovery of gold in California, and the transfer of that land to another nationality. This reminds one of the many signs and omens pointing to the fall of Monteruma, and the Mexican conquest, which oc- cured during the century precedmg that event. Another prophet, who died in 1830, was Padre Magin Catala, of this same mission. Among other things he predicted that great riches would be found in the north, and that people would flock thither in great numbers. It is safe to affirm that among peo- ple of extraordinary piety no important event ever happens but that after the occurrence many persons can be found who said that it would be so. And now for the statement of a savage among others who testify. Puleule, a Yuba, swore, as soon as he had acquired that civilized accomplishment, that when he was a boy, say in 1830, he had often amused himself by picking from the gravel large pieces of gold and throwing them into the water. Manuel Victoria writing;; the Mmistro de Relaciones says in 1831 that there are no mines of any value m California ; that the pagans know of none ; and that it is the opinion of experts that there are no minerals in the country. The unreliable editor of T/ie Natural Wealth of Call- WAHISTER'S THEORY 41 forma, states that the first gold was found in the Santa Clara valley m 1833, and that other deposits were discovered in various places in the Sierra Madre, Blount, the pioneer, assured Bishop Kip in 1864, that thirty years before, that is to say in 1834, he en- countered ore, which at the time he thought to be copper, but then knew to be gold. The bishop dis- plays extreme credulity even in repeating such a statement. About on a par with this is the assertion of Mr Gray, who wrote what he calls a History of Oregon, that two jovial priests, brought to the Oregon coasts by the Hudson's Bay Company, discovered, when wandering among the Bocky Mountains, pure silver and golden ores, specimens of which they car- ried to St Louis and Europe. What their jollity had to do with it the historian does not explain ; nor does he give us proof that any assertion of this kind was made by them prior to the discovery of Marshall. Governor Alvarado thinks it impertinence on the part of Sutter and Marshall to claim the honor of the gold discovery ; for in the fourth volume of his His- toria de California he observes, " que el pueblo Amer- icano es esencialmente egoista cuando trata de hacer aparecer al senor Marshal] como primer descubridor del oro en California ; que en buena hora la legislatura de premios y pensiones a quienes se le Antoje, yo no me mezelo en esos asuntos, desde que mi voz seria demasiado clebil para efectuar reformas que la mayo- ria de los legisladores no desean ver implantadas ; pero exijo que no se cina con laureles que de justicia perte- necen a mis compatriotas, la frente de Sutter, Mar- shall y demas aventureros que a cada bienio se presentan ante la legislatura del Estado reclamando recompensas por servicios que han estado muy lejos de prestar, y por descubrimientos que habian sido hechos mas de quince anos antes que los titulados descubridores del oro Viniesen a California." My old friend Warner gives the most plausible ex- planation as to the origin of the many ungrounded 42 THREE CENTURIES OF WILD TALK. rumors concerning the early discovery of gold in Cali- fornia. Several persons, he says, coming to this comitry, brought with them bullion or dust, to be used as money, which passing into commerce, was handled by different persons and shipped at various times to various places. Thus Palacios, arriving in 1834 as agent for a Guaymas merchant who had pre- viously shipped goods to California, and had purchased land and cattle, brought a considerable quantity of grain gold and silver bars, obtained in Sonora, where- with to facilitate his operations. About the same time J. P. Leese arrived from New Mexico, having in his possession placer gold to the value of several thousand dollars. A large proportion of this treasure fell into the hands of the agents of Boston merchants, and was shipped to Boston, California thus acquiring the reputation in certain circles of a gold-producing country. Thus Mr Dana, referring to the cargo of the Alert, states, in his Tiuo Years Before the Mast, that among other things was a quantity of gold-dust brought from the interior by Indians or Mexicans. And he learned further from the owners that it was not uncommon for homeward-bound vessels to have on board a small quantity of gold. Rumors of gold discoveries were then current, he adds, but they at- tracted little attention. In Mexico, by a law of March 24, 1835, was created the Estahlecimiento de Mineria, which body was to superintend the mines of California, in case there were any, as well as those of northern Mexico. Notwithstanding all these affirmations, oaths, and prophecies, Alexander Forbes, in 1835, writes : "There are said to be many mines of gold and silver in the peninsula, but none are now worked, unless, in- deed, we may except those of San Antonio, near La Paz, which still afford a trifling supply." And again: — " No minerals of particular importance have yet been found in Upper California, nor any ores of metals." And speaking of the coming of Hijar's UNRELIABLE TESTIMONY. 43 party, he says, ''There were goldsmith's proceeding to a country where no gold existed." While on a visit south in 1874, I met at San Luis Obispo, Mr Henry B. Blake, author of a historical sketch of southern California, who stated that the first gold shipped from California was in 1836, and came from the source of the Santa Clara river. With regard to gold in Lower California, the Penny Cydopsedia of 1 836 says : — " The mineral riches are very inconsiderable. Only one mine is worked about ten or twelve miles northwest of La Paz, where gold is ex- tracted, but the metal is not abundant." The San Antonio mine is the one referred to. " It is supposed that the western declivity of the mountains contains a considerable quantity of minerals, but if this be the , case they will probably never be worked, as this part of the peninsula is quite uninhabitable." And the country to the northward is not very different in the opinion of this writer, who continues : '' In minerals Upper California is not rich. A small silver mine was found east of S. Ines, but it has been abandoned. In one of the rivers falling into the southern Tule Lake, some gold has been found, but as yet in very small quantity." CHAPTER III. FURTHER RUMORS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOLD IN CALI- FORNIA PRIOR TO THE DISCOVERY BY MARSHALL. J* Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life ? Look but on Gripus or on Gripus' wife. — Pope. Nearer the mythic than any we have yet encoun- tered, in point of elaboration at least, is the story told in 1865 by the Paris correspondent of the London Star. The writer claims to have discovered, in a pri- vate collection in Paris, belonging to an antiquai'ian named M. le Carpentier, the first gold found in Cali- fornia. It was in this wise: During the revolution of 1830, and for years afterward, M. le Carpentier had felt somewhat nervous lest his collection should be seized by a mob or by burglars, for it was now very valuable. While in this frame of mind he was startled, late one night in 1837, by a loud knocking at the street door. After some delay he opened it with great precaution, and there stood a middle-aged man, emaciated, apparently in wretched health, and in tat- tered garments. " You do not know me," began the individual, speaking somewhat wildly, " but I know you, and that is enough. I want you to assist me in applying to government for a vessel and a hundred men, and I will bring back a ship-load of gold." The antiquary's face showed what hft thought of the proposal. " Oh, I am not mad," the invalid continued. " See here! You are wise. You know the value of this" — producing from his pocket a large piece of quartz, richly impregnated with gold. M. le Carpentier was (44) SOME STRANGE STORIES. 45 a klndhearled man but not avaricious, and he still thouo-ht his visitor a little insane. Leadincr him with- in, he set food before him, and then giving him for a piece of the quartz a napoleon, and telling him to call again whenever he pleased, dismissed him. The man never reappeared, but the rock, when anal- yzed, was found to be rich in gold. Fifteen years elapsed, and the incident was well-nigh forgotten, when one day a small, heavy parcel, enclosed in a torn and greasy handkerchief, was handed with a letter to the antiquarian, by the keeper of a lodging house in a neighboring street, who said that they were left there by a man who had died, and that they had been a long time mislaid. What was the antiquary's as- tonishment, on opening the letter, to find it from the poor invalid, and dated but a few days after his visit, while the heavy package was the block of quartz. " I am dying," he wrote. " You alone listened to me. You alone stretched out a helping hand. I be- queath you my secret. The country whence I brought this gold is called California ! " It is stated that a Scotchman, Young Anderson by name, attempted, in 1837, to enlist English capital in mining ventures, through representations made to him by a Guatemalan priest who had lived in California, that gold existed in the neighborhood of San Francisco. The Scotchman was unsuccessful. In 1851, some three years after Marshall's discovery, it was related in the Worcester Transcript that one W. F. Thompson, an experienced trapper, remembered having found gold while on the north Yuba, some twelve years before, a pound of which he carried with him to Fort Leavenworth. There he left it, no one seemino; to know or to care what it was. When tidino-s of the gold excitement were noised abroad, he was engaged in trapping in the far north, and recognizing his mistake, at once hurried back to the spot, only to find every inch of the ground uprooted. There was quite a mania for mining in Alta Cali- 46 rURTHER RUMORS OF GOLD. fornia about the year 1840. Silver was then the attraction, rather than gold. Men, women, and children talked about their ores very much as in later years stocks were discussed. Copper was about that time discovered at Soledad pass, some ninety miles north of Los Angeles. The Quarterly Review of 1850 states that the English botanist, Douglas, was blamed for not having discov- ered gold on this coast after having travelled over so much of it, and that, too, when "the roots of some of the pines sent home to England were found to have small flakes of gold held together in the clotted earth still attached to them 1 '' Juan B. Alvarado says that the rings which he used at his wedding, in August 1839, were of California gold, and that his eldest daughter has still in her pos- session a golden ring fashioned in 1840 at Monterey from metal procured at San Fernando. In liis manuscript dictation, California 1841-S, John Bidwell remarks: "Among our party of 1841, the general opinion was that there was gold in the Rocky Mountains. Some trapper in the Black Hills had picked up a stone, and carried it with him for a whet- stone, and in the pocket in which he carried the stone he found a piece of gold. My comrade, James John, before mentioned, actually proposed to me, while we were crossing the plains, to remain behind the com- pany in the Bocky Mountains to hunt for gold and silver. It was almost a daily occurrence to see men picking up shining particles, and believing them to be something precious." When James D. Dana, of the United States' ex- ploring expedition entered California from Oregon, in 1841, — it is remarkable how many authors copy each other's errors, and write this date 1842, — he noticed that "the talcose and allied rocks of the Umpqua and Shasty districts resemble in many parts the gold- bearing rocks of other regions, but the gold, if any there be, remains to be discovered." And on his re- THE SAN FERNANDO MINES. 47 turn, when he pubUshed his book on geology, he made mention of gold-bearing rocks and quartz veins both in Oregon and California. Hence the report became current, after the discovery of gold, that Dana had told of its existence in California seven years before, which was not the case, as he himself distinctly states. "It is very doubtful," justly observes Tuthill, in his History of California, "whether it occurred to Profes- sor Dana that there was gold to be found here in quantities that would ever get into more practical use than to lie as rare specimens behind plate doors in the mineralogical cabinets of the colleges." Murchi- son made similar remarks on the auriferous rocks of Australia, and so have twenty other persons spoken of twenty other places, which, however, is far from the actual discovery of gold. It is, moreover, a little singular that so shrewd a man, and so experienced a scientist as Dana, should not have seen the gold which with the sand and gravel he displaced during his journey along Feather river. James Anthony Froude claims that by reason of his geological knowledge Sir Roderick Murchison was enabled to foretell the discovery of Australian gold. It is true that Murchison said that this metal might be found in Australia; a safe affirmation for one laying no claim to geological divination, and considering the size and character of the country. At last we have a veritable gold discovery, and gold mines worked in Alta California, with greater or less success, for a period of six years prior to the dis- covery of Marshall. They were situated in the San Fernando valley, on the rancho of Ignacio del Valle, fourteen leagues from Los Angeles, and eight from the San Fernando mission, toward the Sierra Nevada. The discovery, which occurred in March 1842, was in this wise : Two vaqueros were searching for stray cat- tle in the valley, and when tired, threw themselves upon the ground to rest. One of them casually tak- ing some earth in his hand, noticed shining particles, 48 FURTHER RUMORS OF GOLD. which he fancied were copper. He showed them to his companion, who said they looked Uke gold, and then scraped up some earth, and rubbing it between his hands, found more of the metal. Both decided to take the dust to Los Angeles, and ask the opinion of some of their friends who had worked in the mines of New Mexico. It was not until some days later that they arrived there, and showed it to certain Sonorans who were then at the settlement. They declared that it was placer gold, and asked Francisco Lopez — for that was the name of the man who found it — to take them at once to the locality. Soon afterward they set forth, with a number of their friends, for the San Fernando valley, guided by the two vaqueros. Another version of the discovery is, that in the early part of 1840 Don Andres Castillero, a Mexican mineralogist, picking up a pebble, called tepustete by Mexican placer miners, in the vicinity of the Las Virgenes rancho, remarked that wherever these stones were found gold must exist. Francisco Lopez, the discoverer, overheard the observation and remembered it, when, some months later, while plucking wild onions, a similar pebble was found in the soil around the roots. He set to work examining the earth, and found a grain of gold. Juan Manuel Vaca, owner of the rancho on which was built the town of Vacaville, was the first to carry the news to Governor Alvarado at Monterey, presenting him with an ounce of gold con- tained in quills, from which was made a pair of ear- rings for his wife and a ring for his eldest daughter. In 1842, these mines were worked for a distance of ten leagues, and in 1844 for thirty leagues. The gold was of the best quality, and many representations were made to the supreme government urging the necessity of thorough surveys, and of developing the mineral resources of California. In the Coleccion de documentos relativos al departameiito de Californias, Manuel M. Castanares writes, "this branch ought to be considered less worthy of attracting attention than MISLEADING STATEMENTS. 49 agriculture. It is nevertheless, of great importance, and I have the satisfaction of assuring you that it forms ii California one of the most valuable resources which that department contains." The bed whence the gold was obtained was of gravel, and the cuts into the banks, even as late as 1845, did not exceed thirty feet. Some of the more experienced miners, were able by merely looking at the ground, to tell whether or not it contained gold, and would scrape the surface with a scoop or spoon made of bullock's horn. The earth was then thrown into a basket, which was emptied on a platform made of stakes about three feet high, driven close together into the ground, with poles placed lengthwise and filled in with grass, the whole being covered with a cotton sheet. Then water from a distance of six feet was thrown over the mud, and in an hour or two the dirt would be washed away while the gold remained. As soon as this gold discovery was more generally known, many people flocked to the mines, and in May 1844, Ignacio del Valle was appointed juez de policia, and Zorrilla, his substitute, to keep order, as well as to levy dues upon the sale of liquors, to portion out. the land, and to impose taxes if necessary. It was his business likewise to collect fees for wood, pasture, and mineral privileges. About this time there were one hundred persons at work in the mines ; but the numbers decreased as the running water failed, which they continued to do until the miners were unable to obtain enough to drink. They were a steady and hardworking people, but with all their labor were unable to earn more than from one to two dollars a day. So scanty indeed were their earnings that no taxes or dues were levied for that year. Abel Stearns in November 1842 sent to the Phila- delphia mint for assay, as specimens of this placer gold, eighteen and three quarter ounces mint weight, and twenty ounces by California weight, which in C'al. I^'T. Poc. 4 50 FURTHER RUMORS OF GOLD. August following was returned with the accompany- ing certificate. "Before melting 18 34-100 oz. ; after melting 18 1-100 oz. ; fineness, 926-1,000; value $344.75; deduct expenses, sending to Philadelphia, and agency there, $4.02; net $340.73." By December 1843, two thousand ounces of gold had been taken from the San Fernando mines, the greater portion of which was shipped to the United States; and from that time little is heard of the place till in 1845 Bidwell visited it, and found oaly thirty men at work whose gains did not exceed twenty-five cents a day. E. E. Pickett states that in 1842 he met men in the Rocky Mountains who had been in California and who said that gold was there. "They were not the first to give such information since I had read the same when a boy." It is such statements as this that have so often deceived the public. Mr Pickett never read of gold in Alta California when a boy. "The first hide drogers and other traders who visited this coast, even as long ago as the last century, obtained small quantities of gold-dust washed from the earth in the southern part of the state." This assertion is likewise misleading if not absolutely untrue. I have elsewhere explained how small quantities of gold found their way to the coast. In the Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California, by L. W. Hastings, printed at Cincinnati in 1845, ap- pears the following: — "The information which I was able to acquire does not afford me sufficient data upon which to predicate any very accurate conclusions in reference to the mineral resources of California; but sufficient investigations have been made to deter- mine that many portions of the mountainous regions abound with several kinds of minerals, such as gold, silver, iron, lead, and coal, but to what extent, the extreme newness and unexplored state of the country, utterly preclude all accurate determination. It is, however, reported in the city of Mexico, that some SANDELS, AND THE KING'S ORPHAN. 51 Mexicans have recently discovered a section of coun- try, in the extreme interior of CaUfornia, which af- fords ample evidences of the existence of both gold and silver ore, in greater or less quantities, for thirty leagues in extent. Since this report is so very extra- ordinary, and since it originated as above stated, the safest course would be to believe but about half of it, and then, perhaps, we should believe too much. Doctor Sandels, a very able mineralogist, who had for some time been employed in his profession by the government of Mexico, spent four or five months in mineralogical investigation in Upper California. It was from this gentleman that the above information was de- rived, hence it is entitled to implicit reliance." Sutter toQ^ a great interest in this scientist, and in his labors. Sandels was a Swede educated in London, as Bidwell says, though Thorpe affirms that he obtained his edu- cation in a government institution in his own country, and that he called himself one of the king's orphans ; that is, in return for an education at the expense of the government he was to make investigations in foreign parts for the benefit of the institution, such being one of its regulations. Others say that he had lived in Mexico and was sent by the duke of Bedford to explore California. Bidwell thinks that he had been in Brazil, and was for some time associated with M. Bonpland. He is said to have been robbed in Mexico, of the proceeds of property sold in Brazil to the amount of $189,000, though how the king's orphan obtained such a sum no one attempts to explain. Sandels spent several days at New Helvetia enjoying the hospitality of its proprietor, who took great delight in his society. Seeing him so much interested in minerals, and so unwearied in his researches thereabout, Sutter said to him one day, *' Doctor, can you not find me a gold mine ? " Placing his hand upon the shoulder of his host, the doctor replied, " Captain Sutter, your best mine is in the soil. Leave to governments to provide 52 FURTHER RUMORS OF GOLD. the currency." This was m 1843. Bidwell further states that Sandels explored as far north as Chico creek. Mr Dickey was with him. They did not examine any mountains except the Buttes. On his return to the fort Sandels reported '' indications of gold, but that unless the mountains on the sides were richer than those in the valleys, the mines would not pay to work." A man came from the southern part of California to Sutter Fort in the autumn of this same year, 1843, calling himself Juan Baptiste Buelle. In an old quill, which looked as if it had been brought from New Mexico, were a few particles of gold, which he said he had found on the American river. This excited the suspicions of Bidwell, who was present, and these suspicions were increased when the man asked for two pack-horses laden with provisions, and an Indian boy to attend him. He wished to go in search of gold, he said, and he would be absent several days. There was a company of Canadian trappers in the vicinity about to start for Oregon. It was not known that Ruelle belonged to them, but it was feared that with so valuable an outfit he might forget to return. Hence his request was denied. E. Stevens, a practical gold -miner from Georgia, and the leader of Townsend's party in 1844, came to California with the avowed purpose of discovering gold. While crossing the Bocky Mountains, or shortly afterward, he thought that he recognized in- dications, and one night, when encamped at some point in Utah, washed out a small quantity of dirt and found the color. Nevertheless, this mining ex- pert and professed gold seeker crossed the Sierra, re- turned to its summit in the spring for the wagons of his party, and thence to camp, thus, without being aware of it, travelling several times over the very ground of which he was in search. In the SoutJiern Quarterly, in 1845, some one made hap-hazard the fol- LARKIN'S STATEMENT. 53 lowing statement, referring to California : "In the heart of the country rich veins of gold ore exist." Both silver and gold were reported north of San Francisco bay in 1845 : ''Mines of gold, silver, cop- per, lead, sulphur, and quicksilver," writes an emi- PTant in 1846, "are being; found in all directions." And then he mentions as m operation two quicksilver mines, yielding thirty per cent of pure ore, one on the north and the other on the south side of San Fran- cisco bay. " No less than seventy denouncements of mines have been made to the alcalde of San Jose within the last five months . . . The evidences now are that there is a vast field for mining operations about to open here." Reporting to Commander Montgomery May 2, 1846, in answer to a request for information respect- ing mines in California, Thomas O. Larkin, United States consul at Monterey, makes the following state- ment: "At San Fernando, near San Pedro, by washing the sand in a plate, any person can obtain from one to five dollars per day of gold that brings seventeen dollars per ounce in Boston, The gold has been gathered for two or three years, though but few have the patience to look for it. There is no doubt in my mind but that gold, silver, copper, quicksilver, lead, sulphur, and coal mines are to be found all over California. But I am very certain that they will under their present owners continue as they are. The Indians have always said there were mines, but would not show their location, and the Californians do not choose to look for them." Elsewhere in his report he mentions the copper mines of Juan Bandini, ninety miles south of San Diego ; coal on the rancho of Rafael Gonzalez, seventy miles south of Monterey, and at San Pablo; sulphur beds twenty-five miles north of Monterey, and also near Sonoma; silver mines about sixty miles north of Monterey; asphal- tum in various places; quicksilver near San Jose and Sonoma ; silver and lead twenty miles from Monterey; 54 FTIRTHER RUMORS OF GOLD. lead on the rancho of Captain Richardson ; black lead at various points, and slate on the Sacramento river. On the 4th of May, 1846, Larkin writes from Mon- terey to the secretary of state at Washington: "By the laws and customs of Mexico respecting mining, every person or company, foreign or native, can pre- sent themselves to the nearest authorities and denounce any unworked mine. The authorities will then, after the proper formalities, put the denouncer in possession of a certain part of it, or all ; which is, I believe ac- cording to its extent. The possessor must hereafter occupy and work his mine, or some other person may denounce against him. In all cases the governnjent claims a certain portion of the product. Up to the present time there are few or no persons in California witli sufficient energy and capital to carry on mining, although a Mexican officer of the army, a padre, and a native of New York are, on a very small scale, ex- tracting quicksilver from the San Jose mine." Besides the statements having some pretentions to truth were many absurd stories; such as that gold was discovered by the Mormons in fulfilment of a prophecy of Joseph Smith ; and again, that a Pawnee chief, to whom Sutter had given a rifle, and who died some three months later, appeared to Sutter in the spirit and told him where to find gold, begging him meanwhile to buy with it a rifle for every member of his tribe. In 1864 John Bid well was told by Brig- ham Young that some of his men claimed to have found gold prior to the discovery of Marshall, but that it was doubtless a mistake. After a brief visit to California L. W. Sloat, in December, 1846, read a paper before the Lyceum of Natural History in New York, in which he said : "I am confident that when it (California) becomes settled, as it soon will be by Americans, the mineral develop- ments will greatly exceed in richness and variety the most sanguine expectations" — which after all was no very remarkable prophecy. BANDINI, PICKETT, EVANS. 55 Juan Bandini imagined, in 1846, that the hills around San Diego were impregnated with metal; in- deed a metal of some unknown description had already been discovered. Writing in his Historia de la Alta California he says: ^'Empero, de lo que yo creo que son abundantes estas pequenas sierras es de metales, pues todas las piedras de la superficie asi lo indican, y aiin se ha sacado para fundicion un metal cuya calidad no se ha conocido, atribuyendo esto d, la escasez de hombres de conocimientos mineralogicos." "During 1847," Picket says, "and particularly in the fall of that year, there was quite an excitement in San Francisco and San Jose on the subject of mineral discoveries. But this was mostly in reference to quicksilver and silver mines, which were reported to be rich and numerous in the hills and mountains bounding both sides of the valley of San Jose. To- ward winter this excitement subsided, all the silver mines having proved to be humbugs." One George M. Evans, of Oregon, aspires to the distinction of having been among the first to find gold in California; or at least he attempts to throw Mar- shall into the background. If what he claims for himself has no better basis of truth than what he claims for others, he may take the palm for unblush- ing impudence and mendacity. Meanwhile let him be satisfied with the notoriety to which he has already attained ; for its odor will not be improved by further agitation. So far as I am able to ascertain, it was he who started the story of Cabello, before mentioned, and most bungling work he made of it. Will Mr Evans tell us to what lingo belong 'the words placeros, and Recordado en Historia el California Alta, and how he obtained information that the mission of San Jose was built on the bay of San Francisco in 1672, a hun- dred years before ever a Franciscan was on the ground ? I do not say that all which he affirms is false, for I have no means of knowing. I only say that the statements which I know to be false cause me to distrust all his 56 FURTHER RUMORS OF GOLD. assertions. A Mexican named Salvador, he says, was shot at Yerba Buena in the autunni of 1845. C)n his person was gold-dust to the value of a thousand dol- lars or more. He at first refused to tell where he obtained it; but in his dying hour relented, and point- ing "in the direction of the San Jose mountains," cried, ''lejos! lejosl" Where the San Jose mountains are situated, or what mines were ever found beyond them, Mr Evans does not relate. While with a party of Mormons, who, in the autumn of 1846, ascended the San Joaquin river, on " the sand point of the small island opposite to what is called the entrance to Stock- ton, then called Lindsey's lake," he picked up some yellow specks from the bank, and remembering what the Mexican, Salvador, had said, wrapped them in paper, took them to Yerba Buena, and testing them with acids found them to be gold. If this be true, why did not Mr Evans gather gold, or publish his discovery ? Because, as he claims, of " not having any idea of the gold being in such quan- tity as was afterward proved." But if it was not there in quantity sufficient even to be worthy of men- tion, where did Salvador obtain his bag of it ? Again in August, 1847, in company with Beading and Per- kins, Evans writes, "we explored the mountains near San Diego, and near the river Gila, where we found gold more abundant than has since been found on the north fork of the American." If this was true it is singular that some one did not go there and gather it. Once more, on being informed by Henderson Cox that he and others were about to explore a route across the mountains for the approaching Mormon exodus, he told him of Salvador, and drew for him a chart of the country. Cox went his way, came upon Mormon island and the gold there, and invited Evans to join him. The latter reached that point on the 19th of January, 1848, and by the 8th of February had nineteen thousand dollars. On the next day EXTRAVAGANT INVENTIONS. 57 while he and others " were in the lower end of the mill-race, Marshall the overseer and his little girl came in, and the child picked up a pretty stone, as she called it, and showed it to her father who pro- nounced it gold. He was so excited about it that he saddled his horse and that day rode to Sutter's fort to tell Captain Sutter, but he did not believe it worth mtice, and for a while the idea died away. The Mormons wishing to keep their discoveries a secret from people not Mormons worked out the gold and said nothmg more . . . Marshall died either four days before he arrived home in the eastern states with a barrel of gold, or four days from the coast." Amongst the falsehoods so thickly scattered here, it is difficult to detect a particle of truth. Marshall never went east never had a barrel of gold ; was not dead ; the Mormons never worked out the gold ; never wished to keep their discovery secret from all who were not Mormons, nor did they first discover gold; Evans was not present when the first gold was found at the saw-mill ; the idea with Sutter never died away ; Cox and Beardsley were not the first to find Mormon Island ; Sutter did believe Marshall's statement backed by tne evidence worth his notice ; Marshall's child did not pick up the gold ; Marshall had no child present ; and so on back to the beginning. I must apologize for occupying so much space in criticising a work so unworthy of notice as that of George M. Evans; but if this for myself be necessary, I should apolo- gize in a ten-fold degree for the many journalists, here and in the east, who published his Munch au- senisms as facts, and thus imposed on a credulous public. One of his statements Evans concludes with the oflensivo intimation that he would not ob- ject to a gift from the government in return for the inestimable benefit conferred by him on mankind. Several attempts have been made to rob Marshall of the honor of the discovery ; but so far from the exist- ence of extensive gold deposits being known prior to 58 FURTHER RUMORS OF GOLD. the building of the saw-mill, it was with difficulty men could be made to believe the fact even after it was ascertained beyond a doubt. I will inflict upon the reader but one more of these pure inventions whose sole merit is their extravagance. A stranger giving his name as Bennett entered Brown's hotel, San Francisco, in the summer of 1847. After inviting the landlord to drink, he asked him whether he knew of any one having a thousand dol- lars to invest in something which would yield enor- mous returns, and being thereupon introduced to one George McDougall, said that he wanted a thousand dollars to invest in blankets for traffic with the In- dians, offering as security two small bags containing what he declared to be gold. The men of San Fran- cisco looked at the backwoodsman as if they thought him demented. Meanwhile McDougall's wrath was rising, and finally he broke out. " Do you think I am a fool ! " Bennett walked off, muttering " Yes, I think you are ; and you will find it out one of these days." In the autumn of the following year he again visited San Francisco and showed Brown three hundred pounds of gold-dust, stating that after his interview with McDoucjall he went to Monterey to obtain either the money or the blankets from Thomas O. Larkin, " but as soon as he laid eyes on him he concluded not to ask." In 1847 three noted characters of the day. Moun- tain Jim, Dutch Fred, and Three-fingered Jack sported silver buttons in Monterey, the metal where- for, they said, had been taken from the old Indian claim on the south branch, or Carmelo creek. Some soldiers traded government rations for the buttons, and the army paymaster finally had them assayed at Washington where they stood the test. It was com- mon enough in 1847 and 1848 to see silver in the hands of the natives at the Carmelo ; but little was thought of it at the time, for during the war many mission flagons, censors, chalices, and candlesticks HIGHER AUTHORITY. ' 59 had been melted down, the metal finding its way into trade. In his message of 1848, President Polk stated that at the time of the acquisition of California, the exis- tence was known of precious metals to a considerable extent — referring of course to the de^velopments in the southern part of the state. " Although rumors of the existence of gold in Cal- ifornia had occasionally been heard," said Dwindle in an address before the society of Pioneers in 1866, "still they had never been verified or traced to any re- liable source; and they were regarded as we now regard the fabulous stories of the golden sands of Gold Lake, or those of Silver Planches which are said to ex- ist in the inaccessible deserts of Arizona." Tinkham, in his History of Stockton, says that Weber was not surprised to hear of Marshall's discovery, " as he knew that gold existed in the mountains of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, because he had re- ceived dust in small quantities from the Mexicans at San Jose " — a reasonable deduction truly ! The reader has probably observed how many there were who already knew of the existence of gold in California as soon as Marshall discovered it. Sutter never pretended to this, though he thought it strange that the natives had not brought him gold, for he was always urging them to collect for him any curiosities that could be gathered in the mountains; in answer to which appeal were brought to him plants, animals, birds, fruits, pipe-clay, red ochre, and legends of vari- ous kinds, but never gold. " I was in possession of a fact," writes the Rev. W. Colton, alcade of Monterey, in May 1849, " which left no doubt of the existence of gold in the Stanislaus, more than a year prior to its discovery on the American Fork." Reverend and dear sir, no one doubts that gold was there before Marshall found it; it is the knowledge of its existence that was not as yet revealed. *'A wild Indian," Mr Colton continues, "had strag- 60 rUHTHER RUMORS OF GOLD. gled into Monterey with a specimen which he had hammered into a clasp for his bow. It fell into the hands of my secretary, W. R. Garner, who communi- cated the secret to me. The Indian described the locality in which it was found with so much accuracy that Mr Garner, on his recent excursion to the mines, readily identified the spot. It is now known as Car- son's Dio-o-inas-. . . It was the full intention of Mr Gar- ner to trail this Indian at the first opportunity, and he was prevented from so doing only by the impera- tive duties of the office." Both Parsons and Barstow affirm that previous to his discovery, Marshall had often expressed his belief in the existence of gold in the mountains ; and Mrs Weimer goes so far as to assert that the discovery was not accidental. It is indeed somewhat remarka- ble that the secret remained so long unrevealed. The ground had been traversed these many years by na- tives, by servants of the fur-companies and free trap- pers, by emigrants, by explorers, and by professional scientists who observed nothing, notwithstanding that the tell-tale blush was there upon the foothills plahily visible to those who could read it. And yet it is no matter for surprise. Do not even the most gifted in this latter-day dispensation, with all the brilliant light revealed by science, walk as men blind or dream- ing, while on every side, wrapped in the invisible, or latent in the earth and air and sky, are secrets as manifold, and as pregnant with meaning as any hith- erto divulged, awaiting but the eternal march of mind ? If Dana and Sandels, or any of those who have been heedlessly credited with the discovery, had really found gold as did Marshall, and had published it to the world as did the teamster, how different might have been the destiny of the Pacific coast nations. To England, or to France, either of which countries would have paid thrice over the paltry fifteen millions and the indemnity due the United States, PECUUAR DESTINY. 61 California might then have belonged ; or even Mexico herself might have awakened from her lethargy, and gathered from this new-bom El Dorado sufficient gold wherewith to satisfy her creditors. In such a case how different would have been the appearance, for better or worse, of the hills and valleys of the golden state. Morever, without the gold of California to counter- balance that which England found in Australia, where would have been the commerce of the United States ? Where would have been our credit during the war for the union, when even with California gold, poured in- to New York at the rate of three or four millions a month, the federal promises to pay fell to one-third of their face ? The vital sustenance of that war was Cal- ifornia gold and Nevada silver, without which foreign occupation in the Pacific States was possible, and for- eign domination, with abolition of Monroe doctrines and the like, extremely probable. In conclusion, it is hardly necessary for me to state that there is as yet no sufficient evidence of any knowl- edge by white men of the existence of gold in the Sierra foothills, prior to the discovery at the Coloma saw-mill on the 24th of January, 1848. Even were it not so ; if, for instance, as in the case of America and the Northmen, the existence of the continent had been once known, and the knowledge lost or forgotten, to Columbus, none the less, would belong the honor of dis- covery. So with Marshall. There may have been some who thought of gold, or talked of gold, or even handled gold before January 1848; but, none the less, to James Marshall belongs the honor of its discovery, if indeed, it can be called an honor. The difference in the merit of the two discoveries, not to mention their relative importance, as to which, of course, there can be no comparison, is that in the one case Columbus be- lieved in a new world and sought it, while Marshall stumbled on his discovery by the merest accident. CHAPTER IV. AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL DURIN'G THE SPRING OF 1848. Plutus. I shan't go near that fellow, Jupiter. Jupiter. How, my good Plutus, not when I bid you? Plut.u.s. No. He insulted me, turned me out of his house, and scattered me in all directions, — me, the old friend of the family, all but pitched me out of doors, as if I burnt his fingers. What! go back to him, to be thrown to his parasites, and toadies, and harlots? No; send me to those who value the gift, who will make much of me, who honor me, and desire my company, and let all these fools keep house still with Poverty who prefer her to me. Let them get her to give them a spade and an old sheepskin, and go dig for their two-pence a-day, after squandering thousands in gifts to their friends. Jupiter. Timon will never behave so to you again. ^Lucian. When at length civilization began to creep into the canons of the Sierra foothills, and the cry of gold was raised, how was answered the mill-race digger's shout ? Tamely enough, at first. Few heeded it, or imagined that it amounted to any more than a thousand other great or small discoveries made since Spaniards began their explorations northward from Mexico. Gold was thinly distributed over wide areas, with richer depos- its at intervals, so that for one great discovery, there were a hundred which were hardly worth attention. When bags and bottles of it were displayed at Be- nicia, at Sonoma, at San Francisco, and Monterey, the sleepy towns began to rub their eyes, and awake to the fact that here was gold, bright yellow hard gold, and in such quantities as might well and quickly claim their consideration. The quiet of pastoral Cali- fornia was disturbed ; the pulses of the people quick- ened as with one accord they directed their eyes northward. Thence spread the news to Mexico, to Oregon, to the islands of the sea, to the eastern shore of the continent, to South America, and to the conti- (62) MARSHALL, THE DISCOVERER. 63 nents of the so-called old world. White people heard of it, and black people ; coppery, red, and yellow peo- ple, — came rushing in from every quarter, all eager for some of the delectable dirt. Much has been written regarding the Coloma gold- discovery. Much about it worth knowing remains unwritten. The choicest unpublished information to my knowledge is that contained in the manuscript of Henry W. Bigler, Diary of a Mormon in California, who was on the ground at the time, with a remarkably clear head and ready pen. The statement given me by Mr Sutter at Litiz, and contained in the manuscript entitled Personal Reininisceiices of General John Augus- tus Gutter, is also exceedingly interesting and valuable. I will herewith present verbatim several of the more important accounts of the discovery. Marshall was a queer genius. I speak with exact- ness, for he was both a genius and queer. I have in my possession an old daguerreotype which is unlike any other portrait that I have seen. Parson's Life of Marshall is the best book upon the subject extant. Naturally kind and humane, his mind dreamy while his faculties were in repose, but of cragged disposition and inclined to be a little fierce when roused, all along his later life he was made morose by what he deemed injustice and neglect on the part of the people, and of the government. "The enterprising energy of which the orators and editors of California's early golden days boasted so much as belonging to Yankeedom," he.writes bitterly in 1857, "was not national but indi- vidual. Of the profits derived from the enterprise it stands thus, Yankeedom $600,000,000; myself indi- vidually $000,000,000. Ask the records of the coun- try for the reason why ? They will answer, I need not. Were 1 an Englishman, and had made my dis- covery on English soil, the case would have been different." Mr Hittell visited him at Coloma in his retirement, where he alone remained of all those early discoverers. "No photograph of him has ever been 64 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL. obtained " he said. ** I requested him to let me get a negative, from which I would have pictures taken and sold in San Francisco for his benefit, but he re- fused indignantly. The thought of the injustice that had been done him made him unhappy. He wanted no allusion made to the debt due by California to him. Others have been loaded with wealth and honor, and he has been left to struggle along; in poverty and ob- scurity, he who discovered the gold that made Cali- fornia what it is." Poor Marshall ! Too simple and sensitive by half 1 Had he made the gold, and it had been stolen from him by an ungrateful republic, he would not have been in his own opinion more cruelly wronged than by this neglect to reward him for — what? Yet we can but feel kindly toward the man who, though mistaken in what constitutes greatness, and merit worthy of public reward, was nevertheless well-meaning, honest, and industrious. His name will forever be conspicuous in the annals of the country, howsoever accidentally it became so. Yet far more than in picking from the historic tail- race the first particle of the divine dirt founcl there, Marshall had often played the hero. The world knows its impudent men, its brassy, bellowing fellows; but how few of its real noblemen ! Many generous deeds are recorded of Marshall while in the war ; and it was not an unmanly act, the saving his saw-mill, in the way he did, from a freshet which threatened it just before the discovery of gold. The dam was built of brush with the butts laid down stream. The rains coming on, the river rose, and fears were entertained that the works would all be swept away. Side by side with his men, Marshall worked day and night, and received therefor the praise of his partner, and the respect and admiration of his associates. Up to his waist in water, in constant peril of his life, for many hours he worked, and finally succeeded in anchoring the mill in safety. Marshall claimed to have been the cause of the dis- THE AUSTRALIAN GOLD-FINDER 65 covery of gold in Australia as well as in California. The story goes tliat an Englishman, named Har- graves, came one day to the Coloma mill for lumber. He seemed specially in a bad humor, for he was curs- ing California, and the people, and lauding to 'eaven hevery thing, Haustralian and Henglish. Marshall let him go on for a while without saying a word. Finally he broke out: "See here, my friend 1" if you don't like this coun- try, why do you come here ? Nobody invites you. Nobody will cry if you take yourself off. Go home and dig gold. I warrant you I could find the stuff in Australia." The spea,ker, beginning sharply, had gradually, almost unconsciously dropped into a medi- tative strain. The man took it up in earnest. Marshall was a great character thereabout; he had found gold in California, and surely he must know if it was in Aus- tralia. "Do you really think so?" asked Hargraves. "I ani sure of it," said Marshall. "If I thought so I would go." And he went. And for the millions of pounds sterling turned by this means into the British treasury, he received from the British government £5,000, and from the Australian government £10,000, while Marshall from his un- grateful country received nothing. Everybody was busy and cheerful at the Coloma mill on the afternoon of the 24th of January 1848, for the heavy rains which had threatened to destroy the dam during the first half of the month had ceased, and the danger was past. There were several of the Battalion boys here at work in various ways'. They had come hither, last from the half-completed flour- ing-mill at Brighton ; and such had been their suffer- ings during their terrible march from Council Bluff and Santa Fe, as to make the double pine-log-and- clapboarded cabin seem exceedingly comfortable, and Cal. Int. Poc. 5 66 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL. the grizzly bears, and wolves, and wild Indians more companionable than civilized man with his detestable prejudices and tyrannies. Present assisting on the works were eight good Indians from New Helvetia, and because they would not speak when spoken to, the valley people did not like their brethren of the mountains, but called them mala gente, and wanted to kill them. Weimer and his aborio-inal mechanics were indus- triously employed in the lower part of the race, which by this time was nearly deep enough at that end. Up near the place where the mill-wheel was to be Bigler was drilling into an obstinate boulder. Ben- nett and Scott were working at the bench ; Stephens and Barger were hewing timber; Smith and «1ohn- son were felling trees. Near the men's cabin, and close by where Bigler was blasting, Brown was whip- sawing with an Indian. This heathen was greatly interested in affairs, and worked with a will ; for he had been told that this machine when finished would saw out boards of its own volition ; whereat he had responded that it was a lie. It was as good as a play to see this fellow when the mill was first started run- ning. He was " completely beaten," Bigler says. " He lay on his belly, where he could have a fair view from the bank, but near the saw ; and he lay there for two hours watching it. He was taken with it, and said it was wano — Indian Spanish for bueno — and wanted to be a sawyer right away." Brown and Bitxler were amusino; themselves, while at their work, by quizzing the doubting aboriginal in the saw-pit respecting supernatural agency in the handling of saw-logs, when they were approached by a 3^Qung Indian who requested them to get him a tin plate, at once, for Mr Marshall, who was at the lower end of the race with Weimer. Brown jumped off from the log, and brought from the cabin the plate, wonderino; meanwhile what Marshall could want with the thing. When about to quit work for the night, DISCOVERY OF GOLD. 67 Marshall came up and said, "Boys, I believe I have found a gold mine." The remark produced no start- ling effect upon his hearers, and Marshall walked off" to his house on the mountain-side which he had lately built for himself Later Marshall visited the men's cabin, and again remarked that he was almost sure he had found gold at the lower end of the race. Then he said, " Brown, I want you and Bigler to shut down the head-gate early in the morning. Throw in a little saw-dust, rotten leaves, and dirt ; make all tight, and we will see what will come of it." The men do as they had been told. And while they are at breakfast Marshall goes down to the mill- race alone. After breakfast the m^en come out, and each betakes himself to his work. Presently Mar- shall appears, his old white hat within his arm, look- ing wonderfully pleased. A smile overspreads his face, and the boj's know that it means something unusual. Coming nearer, slowly, quietly, yet in heavy depth of tone he speaks : " Boys, by God, I've got it ; " and he places his hat down on a bench in the mill-3^ard. All gather round to see what it is ; and there, sure enough, on the top of the crown, knocked in a little, lies the worshipful metal. There is about half an ounce of it, in flakes and grains, from the smallest particle to pieces as large as a kernel of wheat or larger, and though not one of the party has ever before seen gold in its native state, there is no longer a skeptic among them. Azariah Smith draws from his pocket a five-dollar piece, part of his mili- tary pay, and compares it with the dust. There seenL-^; to be little difference in color or weight ; the coin is somewhat lio-hter in tint, which is accounted for by reason of its alloy. Not a very crucial test, but all sufficient at this juncture. Led by Marshall, all now hasten down the race, and soon are absorbed in picking from the seams and crevices the precious metal. They conclude that the deposit is rich ; and from this time the fever 68 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL- sets in. Further tests are applied, for trembling doubts will arise, and some is thrown into vinegar, and some is boiled in Mrs Weimer's soap kettle. En- joining secrecy Marshall takes some of the gold and goes with it to the fort to have it further tested. And when he returns thus he delivers himself: "Oh boys ! it's the pure stuff." Then he goes on to relate his adventure: " I and the Old Cap " for so he calls Sutter, " went into a room and locked ourselves up. And we were half a day trying it. And the regulars there wondered what the devil was up. They thought perhaps I had found quicksilver, as the woman did down toward Monterey. Well ! we compared it with the Encyclopedia, and it agreed with it ; we applied aqua fortis but it would have nothing to do with it. Then we weighed it in w^ater; we took scales with silver coin in one side balanced by the dust in the other, and gently let them down into a basin of water ; and the gold went down and the silver up." And he motions the manner of it with his hands. *' That told the story what it was," he concludes. Marshall reported further that Sutter would soon be there, and examine into the matter for himself Sure enough, next day Marshall entered the men's cabm and said, "Boys, the Old Cap has come; he is up at my house. Now I will tell you what we will do. You know, he always carries his bottle. Let us each throw in and give Henry some gold, and in the morning, when you shut down the head-gate, let him take it down and sprinkle it over the base rock ; and when the Old Gent comes down, and sees it lying there, he will be so excited that he will out with his bottle and treat all hands." It was agreed ; the salting was done ; and while the men were at breakfast next morn- ing they saw Sutter, with Marshall and Weimer on either side of him, coming down to the mill. Sutter was dressed with care as became the owner of square leagues, and the commander of a fortress, and he walked with a cane. The men stepped out into the SUTTER'S VISIT. • 69 mill-yard, and heartily and respectfully greeted their employer, who invited them to join the party in a walk down the race. While on the way one of Weimer's little boys ran on in advance of them, and seeing the shining substance so temptingly displayed, the pest picked up nearly every particle of it, and came running back aimostout of breath, and crying, " Father ! Father! See what I have found!" Marshall and his men each to heaven breathed a silent curse on that innocent head for having spoiled their fun. Sutter, seeing it, struck his cane into the ground and ex- claimed, *' B}^ Jo ! its rich." The boy had left un- rifled the seams, and crevices, and gravel deposits, and the men after all had an exciting time of it gold- picking, Sutter among the rest. There is little wonder the statements are conflicting when no one saw it all, and each was able to describe correctly only those parts of which he "was an eye wit- ness. And after innumerable repetitions and disput- inirs, confusion arose. Some even denied that Marshall was the first discoverer at Coloma, but this assertion is not worthy of consideration. Then there was a controversy over the first piece found, and what be- came of it, more senseless than the rest. Sutter, at Litiz, showed me a ring upon which was engraved on the outside his coat of arms, and on the inside. " The first gold discovered in January 1848." And yet it was not, speaking with exactness, the first gold dis- covered ; for Sutter says in his statement that some of it he picked up himself, and some was given him by the men then present. The ring weighed an ounce and a half. Then Mrs Weimer claimed to have had in her possession for many years the very first piece picked up, and which Marshall gave her. This cannot be true, as accordino; to Marshall's testi- niony the first piece weighed fifty cents, whereas Mrs Weimer's piece was equal to five dollars and twelve cents. It is safe to conclude that the destiny of this first piece is lost to history. 70 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL. The following copies of statements may be relied upon as correct, word for word with the respective originals. And as first in importance I give the ac- count delivered me from his own lips by General Sutter. One rainy afternoon in January 1848, Marshall, dripping with water, en- tered my office, next the gnanl houie, in a hurried excited manner, and a k:nl to see me alone in the big house, wliieh was my private office, and the clerk ;' offices. I was surprised, because the day before I sent up all that he wanted, mill-iron and everything. I could not imagine wliat he wanted, yet I con- ducted him to my private rooms, parlor and bedroom, and we entered and shut tlie door. In this parlor I had veiy ancient furniture made l)y the Rus- sians at Fort Ross, the first manufactured in California, being of laurel, and very clumsy. Yob it was better than the chairs in many rich men's liome3 of that period. Often have I gone into the house of a well-to-do owner of large lierd^ of cattle, and have l)een offered a IniUock's liead to sit on, as a chair. Marshall asked me if the door was locked. I said, 'no, l)ut I will lock it.' H3 was a singular man, and 1 took this to l)e some freak of his. I was not in the least afraid of him. I had no weapon. There was no gun in tl^e room. I only supposed, as he was queer, that he took this queer way to tell me some secret. He first said to me, 'Are we alone?' I replied, 'Yes.' 'I want two bowls of water,' said he. I rang the bell for a servant. I had six different signals for six different clerks and servants. The l)owls of water were brought. 'Now I want a stick of redwood,' said Marshall, 'and some twine and some sheet copper.' ' Wliat do you want of all these things, Marshall ? ' said I. 'I want to make some scales,' he replied. 'But I have scale? enough in the apothecary's shop,' said I. I had all the time a doctor, when I could get one, and a hospital, and treated people without charge. 'I did not tliink of that,' said Marshall. I went myself and got some scales. Meajiwhile the door had become unlocked again, and so remained, although it was on the side of the room adjoining, my rooms being double. It was not my office, but my private rooms. When I returned with tlie scales, I shut the door, but did not lock it again. Then Marshall pulled out of his pantaloons' pocket a white cotton rag, which contained sometliing rolled up in it. Just a 5 he was unfolding it to show me the contents, the door .was opened by a clerk passing through, who did not know that we were in the room, "ihere,' exclaimed Marshall, quickly thrusting the cotton cloth again in his pocket, ' did not I tell you we had listeners ? ' I appea :ed him, ordered the clerk to retire, and locked the door. Then he broiiglit out his mysterious secret again. Opening the clotli he held it l^efore me in his hand. It contained what might have been about an ounce and a half of gold-dust, flaky and in grains, the largest piece not quite so large as a pea, and from that down to le^s than a pin-head in size. 'I believe tliis is gold,' said Marshall, ' Init tlie people at tlie mill laughed at me, and called me crazy.' I carefully examined it, and said to him, 'Well, it looks so; we will try it.' Then I went to the apotliecary's shop, and got aqua fortis and applied it. Tlie stuff stood the test. Marshall asked me if I had any silver. I said, * yes, ' and produced a few dollars. Then we put an equal quantity in weight of gold in one side and silver in the other, and drojjping the two in the bowls of water, the gold went down and outweighed tlie silver under water. Then I brought out a volume of the old American encyclopedia, a copy of which I happened to have, to see what other tests there Avere. Then I said to him, ' I believe this is the finest kind of gold. ' Then he said he wished I would accompany him immediately to the mill. It was about supper-time, and i-aining hard. I said, ' You had better take supper now; I will go up early in the morning, as soon as I have given my SUTTER'S STATEMENT. 71 men orders and arranged the affairs of the day.' Mar.ihall would not wait for supper or anytiiiug elie, but mounted and rode off in the rain. The Spanish serapes were very good to keep the rain off. At once, and during the night, the cur^e of the thing burst upon my mind. I saw from tlie beginning how the end wouhl be, and the next day I liad a mehvncholy ride of it to the saw-mUL Of course I knew nothing of the extent of the discovery, but I was satisfied, whether it amounted to much or little, that it would greatly interfere with my plans. Attended by my sergeant and one of my soldiers — both Indians — I set out next morning for the mill. \Vlien about half way there I discovered an object moving about in the bushes naar the road. Turning to my attendant I asked, 'What is that?' He replied, 'It is the same man who wa? with you last night.' Riding up, I found, sure enough, it was Marshall. It was t'.ien raining hard. 'Rave yovi been here all night?' I a ;ked. 'No, 'he replied, 'I spent the night at tlie mill, and came l)ack thus far to meet you.' During our ride to the mill, Marshall was still very restlesc. He said he believed the whole country round v»'asrich with gold. When we arrived he went with me to the mill-race. People wei-e at M^ork widening and deepen- ing the race. Then he told them to quit work and let the water through. After it had run a while he ordered it stopped again. Meanwhile the water had washed the gravel and dirt away, and then we went in hunt" g for the little pieces such as Marshall had brought down. I picked S' .le up, and then each of the Mormons gave nie some, and Marshall gave is some, too. Then I said, ' This all must be made into a finger-ring, as soon as we can get a goldsmith,' and later this was done, and I have this ring now. Here it is. It weigh 5 about an ounce and a half, and bears the inscription, ' The first gold discovered, in January 1818.' I had my coat of arms engraved on it. I told the people there that it was gold, that there was no mistake, and that I only asked that its discovery should he kept a secret for six weeks until I got my flour-mill ready, and they all were very willing to do so. But J;his was not to be. The men could not get along M'ithout provisions, and I sent some up by a Swiss teamster. I should have sent my Indians. Mrs Weimer had some boys, who said to the teamster, 'We have g )t some gold. ' Tiie man laughed at them, when the mother exclaimed, ' Well, you need not laugh. It is true we have found gold. Look here, what do you call that?' This woman little knew the consequences to me of this thought- less wagging of her tongue. Ihe teamster secured some of this gold and returned to the fort. At that time Sam Brannan and George Smith, a relative of the great Mormon prophet, now high in the Utah church, kept a store in one of my outhouses near the fort. This was the first store, except my own, started in the valley. There were then a good many settlers in the valley, and they brought to this INIormon store hides, tallow, and skins, and took away manufactured articles. McKinstry, who was with me then, called it a shirt-tail store, for every time I wanted a few things for my Indians, the proprietors exclaimed, ' O, you will break tlie assortment ! ' Nevertheless, this store assumed great impor- tance a3 soon as gold was discovered. Women and whiskey helped the thing along. It was a fundamental and unalterable law of the shirt-tail store that credit should not be given for whiskey. This was altogether too valual:)le a commodity to be trusted out. The Swiss teamster was universally thirsty. He wanted now a bottle of brandy. At the counter where he had been so often refused, he presented hi nself, called for his poison, and at the same time proudly came down with the dust. 'What is that? You know very well liquor means money,' exclaimed brother Smith. ' That is money, ' replied the teamster. ' It is gold. ' ' Yes, yes, that will do, ' said Smith. ' I have no time for your pleasant- tries. ' ' Go to the fort and ask the captain if you don't believe me. ' 72 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL. Smith came in hot haste, and said, ' Yoiir man came to me and said that this is gold. Of course I knew he lied, and told him so. ' ' Nevertheless it is gold,' said I, and so the secret was out. Next I will give the account by George Frederick Parsons, which may be regarded as the best of Mar- shall's versions: On the morning of that memorable day Marshall went out as usual to superintend the men, and after closing the fore-bay gate, and thus sliutting off the water, walked down the tail-race, to see what sand and gravel had been removed during the night. This had l)eeu customary witli him for some time, for he had previously entertained the idea that there might be minerals in the mountains, and had expressed it to Sutter, who, however, only laughed at him. On this cccasion, having strolled to the lower end of the race, he stood for a moment examining the mass of del)ris that had been washed down ; and at this juncture liis eye caught the glitter of something that lay, lodged in a crevice, on a riffle of soft granite, some six inches under the water. His first act was to stoop and pick up the substance. It was heavy, of a peculiar color, and unlike anything he had seen in the stream before. For a few minutes he stood with it in his hand, reflecting, and en- deavoring to recall all that he had heard or read concerning the various minerals. After a close examination, he became satisfied that what he held in his hand must be one of three substances — mica, sulphurets of copper, or gold. The weight assured him that it was not mica. Could it be snlphuret of copper? He remembered that that mineral is brittle, and that gold is malleal)le, and as this thought passed through his mind, he turned about, placed the specimen upon a flat stone, and proceeded to test it by striking it with another. The substance did not crack or flake off; it simply bent un- der the blows. This, then, was gold, and in this manner was the first gold found in California. If we were writing a sensation tale, instead of a sobre history, we might proceed to relate how Marshall sank, pale and breathless upon a neighbor- ing rock, and how, as he eyed the glittering metal in his hand, a vision roje before him of the mighty results of his discovery. But in fact nothing of the kind occurred. The discoverer was not one of the spasmodic and excita- ble kind, but a plain, shrewd, practical fellow, who realized the importance of the discovery — though doubtless not to its full extent, since no one did that then — and proceeded with his work as usual, after showing the nugget to his men, and indulging in a few conjectures concerning the probable extent of the gold fields. As a matter of course he watched closely from time to time, for further developments, and in the course of a few days had collected several ounces of the precious metal. Although, however, he was satisfied in his own mind that it was gold, there were some who were skeptical, and as he had no means of testing it chemically, he determined to take some down to his partner at the fort, and have the question finally decided. Some four days after the discovery it became necessary for him to go below, for Sutter had failed to send a supply of provisions to the mill, and tlie men were on short commons. So mounting his horse, and taking some three ounces of gold dust with him, he started. Having always an eye to business, he availed himself of this opportunity to examine the river for a site for a lum- ber yard, whence the timber cut at the mill could be floated down; and while exploring for this purpose he discovered gold in a ravine in the foot- hilh, and also at the place known afterwards as Mormon island. That night he slept under an oak tree, some eight or ten miles east of the fort, where he arrived about nine o'clock the next morning. Dismounting from his horse, he entered Sutter's private office, and proceeded to enquire into the cause of the delay in sending up the provisions. Ihis matter liaving been explained, and the teams l)eing in a fair way to load, he asked for a few minutes' private conversation with Colonel Sutter, and the two entered a ^1 MARSHALL AND BROOKS. 73 little room at the back of the store, reserved as a private office. Then Marshall showed him the gold. He looked at it in astonishment, and, still doubting, asked what it was. His visitor replied that it was gold. ' Impos- sible ! ' was the incredulous ejaculation of Sutter. Upon this Marshall asked for some nitric acid, to test it, and a vaquero having been despatched to the gunsmith's for that purpose, Sutter enquired whether there was no other way in which it could be tested. He was told tliat its character might be ascertained by weighing it, and accordingly some silver coin — $3. 25, was all the fort could furnish — and a pair of small scales or balances having been obtained, Marshall proceeded to weigh the dust, first in the air, and then in two bowls of water. The experiment residted as he had foreseen. The du3t went down; the coin rose lightly up. Sutter gazed, and his doubts faded, and a subsequent test with the nitric acid, which by this time had ar- rived, settled the question finally. Then the excitement began to spread. Sutter knew well the value of the discovery, and in a short time, having made hurried arrangements at tl;e fort, he returned with Marshall to Coloma, to see for himself the wonder that had been reported to him. Here is what purports to be a verbatim relation by Sutter to J. Tyrwliitt Brooks, quite different and in many places contradictory to that given by him to others. One can easily imagine how Sutter himself might change his story in its several narrations accord- ino; to humor and audience: I was sitting one afternoon, said the captain, just after my siesta, engaged by-the-by, in writing a letter to a relation of mine at Lucerne, wlien I was interrupted by Mr ^Marshall — a gentleman with whom I had frequent buoine :s transactions — bursting hiirriedly into the room. From t'.ie unusual agitation in h's manner I imagined that something serious had occurred, and, as v.e involuntarily do in this part of the world, I at once glanced to see if my riiie was in its proper place. You should know that the mere appearance of Mr Marshall at that moment in the fort was quite enough to surprise me, as he had, but two days before, left tlie place to make some alterations in a mill for sawing pine planks, which he had just run up for me, some miles higher up the Americanos. \Mien he had recovered himself a little, he told me th.at however great my surprise might be at his unexpected reappearance, it would be much greater when I heard the intelligence he had come to bring me. ' Intelligence ' he added, ' which, if properly profited by, would put both of U3 in possession of unheard of wealth — millions and millions of dollars, in fact.' I frankly own, when I heard this, that I thougl:t something had touched Marshall's l)rain, when suddenly all my misgivings were put to an end l)y his flinging on the table a handful of scales of pure virgin gold. I was fairly thunderstruck, and asked him to explain what all this meant, when he went on to say, that accord hig to my instructions, he had thrown the mill- wheel out of gear, to let the whole body of the water in the dam find a pas- sage through the tail-race, which was previously too narrow for the water to run off in sufficient quantity, whereby the wheel was prevented from effi- ciently performing its work. By this alteration the narrow channel was con- siderably enlarged, and a mass of sand and gravel carried oflf by the force of the torrent. Eaidy in the morning after this took place, he — Mr Marshall — was walking along the left bank of the stream, when he perceived something which he at first took for a piece of opal — a clear, transparent stone, very common here ■ — glittering on one of the spots laid bare by the sudden crumbling away of th.e bank. He paid no attention to this ; but while he was giving directions to the workmen, having ol)served several similar glittering fragments, his curiosity was so far excited, that he stooped down and picked one of them up. ' Do you 74 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL. kaow, ' said jSIar.sliall to me, ' I jjosi tively debated within myself two or three tlmeo, wliether I should take the trouble to bend my back to pick lip one of tlie pieces, and had decided on not doing so, when, further on, another glit- tering morsel caught my eye — the largest of the pieces now Viefore you. I condescended to pick it up, and to my astoniihinent found that it wan a thin scale of what appears to be pure gold. ' He then gathered some twenty or thirty similar pieces, which on e^camination convinced him that his supposi- tions were right. His first impression was that this gold h.ad been lost or buried there by some early Indian tribe — perhaps some of those mysterious inhabitants of the west, of whom we have no account, but w!io dwelt on this continent centuries ago, and built those cit-ies and temples, the ruins of which are .■scattered about these solitary wilds. On proceeding, however, to examizie the neighboring soil, he discovered that it v^as more or less auriferous. This ai once decided him. He mounted his horse and rode down to me as fast as it would carry him, with the news. At the conclusion of Mr Marshall's ac- count, continued Captain Sutter, and when I had convinced myself, from the specimens he had broiight with him, that it M'as not exaggerated, I felt as mucli excited as himself. I eagerly enquired if lie had shown the gold to the work-people at the mill, and was glad to hear that he had not spoken to a single person al)out it. We agreed, said the capta'n, smihng, not to r.'.en- tion the circum itance to anyone, and arranged to set off early the next day for the mill. On our arrival, just before sundown, we poked the sand about in various places, and before long succeeded in collecting between us more than an ounce of gold, mixed up with a good deal of sand. I stayed at INIr Marshall's that night, and the next day we jiroceeded some little distance up the south fork, and found tliat gold existed along the whole course; not only in the bed of the main stream, where the water had subsided, but in every little dried-up creek and ravine. Indeed, I think it is more plentiful in these latter places, for I, myself, witli nothing more than a small knife, picked out frona a dry gorge, a little way up the mountain, a solid lump of gold which weighed nearly an ounce and a half. On our return to the mill, we were astonished by the work-people coming up to ii.5 ia a body, and showing ui small flakes of gold similar to those we had ourselves procured. ]\Iar::hall tried to laugh the matter off with them, and to persuade them that what they had found was only some shining mineral of trilling value; but one of the Indians, who l:ad worked at the gold mine in the neighborhood of La Paz, in Lower California, cried out 'oro! oro!' We were disappointed enough at this discovery, and supposed that the work-people had been watching cur movements, although we thoiiglit we had taken every precaution against being observed by tiiera. I heard afterwards that one of them, a sly Ken- tuckian, had dogged us about, and that, looking on the ground to see if he could discover what we were in search of, had lighted on some flakes of gold himself. The following is an account taken by Mary P. Winslow, in December 1874, from Mrs Wiemer, who, with her husband, was then in San Francisco seekiniy relief from the society of Pioneers. The writer speaks of Mrs Wiemer as a fine large woman of some sixty summers, with an intelligent kindly face. We arrived here November 1846, with a party of fourteen families, across the plains from Missouri. On arriving at Sutter's fort, Sacramento, we found Fremont in need of more men. My husband enlisted before we had got the oxen unyoked, and left me and seven children at the fort m the care of Commissary Currin. We drew our rations like common soldiers for four months. Captain Sutter arranged a room for us in the fort. As soon as Mr Wiemer returned from Santa Clara, where he had been stationed during MRS WIEMER'S STORY. 75 the winter, he joined three others and went over the mountains to what is ni)W called Donner lake to fetch over the etiects of the Donner fanuly, alter that terrilile winter of suffering that you have heaid aljout. In June 1847 they loaded all our household plunder fur Battle creek, up on the Sacramento, to put up a saw-mill, but they changed their plana and went to Coloma. Ct.ptani Sucter and J. W. Marshall were equal partners and were the head of tlie expedition. After seven days of travel, we arrived at sun- down a nide above the town. Next morning Mr Wiemer went out to select a site for the saw-mill, and I, a site for the house. He was to oversee the Indians, be a handy man about, and I was to be cook. We had from fifteen to twenty men employed. ' But you had some help from the Indians, didn't you ? ' asked the writer. ' Oh no, except to scratch out the pots and sweep out the dirt floors. We soon had a log house, a good log house, and a log heap to cook by. ' They had been working on the mill-race, dam, and mdl about six months, when, one morning along the last days of December or the first M'eek of January, 1847-8, after an absence of several days to the fort (that was our San Francisco in those days) Mr Marshall took ^Ir Wiemer and went down to see wdiat had been done while he was away. The water wais entirely shut off and, a5 they walked along, talking and examining tlie work, just ahead of them, on a little, roiTgh, muddy rock, lay something looking bright, Lke gold. They both saw it, Ijut Mr Marshall was the first to stoop to pick it up, and, aj he looked at it, doubted its being gold. Our little son Slartin was along with them, and Mr Marshall gave it to him to bring iip to me. He came in a hurry and said: 'Here, mother, here is something Mr Mar- shall and pa found, and they want you to put it into salaratus Avater to see if it will tarnish.' I said, ' Tliis is gold, and I will throw it into my lye kettle, which I had just tried with a feather, and if it is gold, it will be gold when it? comes out. ' I finished off my soap tliat day and set it off to cool, and it stayed there till next morning. At the breakfast table one of the work hands raised up his head from eating and said, 'I heard some- thing about gold l)eing discovered, what about it ? ' Mr Marshall told him to ask Jenny, and I told him it was in my soap kettle. !Mr Marshall said it was there if it had not gone back to California. A plank was brought for me to lay my soap onto, and I cut it in chunks, but it was not to lie found. At the Ijottom of the pot was a doiible handful of potash, which I lifted in my two hands, and there was my gold as bright as it could be. Mr Mar- shall still contended it was not gold, but whether he was afraid his men would leave him or he really thoiight so I don't know. Mr Wiemer re- marked that it looked like gold, weiglied heavy and would do to make money out of. The men promised not to leave till the mill was finished. Not be- ing sure it was gidd, Mr Wiemer urged Mr Marshall to go to the fort and have it tested. He did so, and George McKinstry, an assayer, pronounced it gold. Captain Sutter came right up with Mr Marshall and called all the Indians together, and agreed with them to certain boundaries t!iat they claimed, and on the right of discovery demanded thirty per cent of all gold taken out. They in payment were to give the Indians a certain number of handkerchiefs, pocket-knives, looking-glasses, shirts, beads, and other trinkets. ' iMrs Weimer will you be kind enough to tell me how you came in posses- sion of this piece of gold.' ' Yes; it was just this way; one day Mr Marshall was packing up to go away. He had gathered together a good deal of dust on tlie tliirty per cent l)usiness, and had it buried under the floor. In overhauling his traps, he said to me in the presence of Elisha Packwood, ' Jenny, I wdl give you tliis piece of gold. I always intended to have a ring made from it for my mother, but I will give it to you.' I took it and have had it in my posses- sion from that day to this. ' You have not the exact date of the discovery of gold?' 'No, but it M'as somewdiere aliout the holidays, for I know that Captain Sutter had sent up to me a dozen bottles of brandy, six for the men 76 AFFAIRS ABOUT TEE COLOMA SAW-MILL and six for me.' The piece of gold I must describe. Its value is between four and live dollars. It looks like a piece of spruce gum just out of tLe mouth of a school-girl, except the color. It is rather Hat, full of indenta- tions, just as the teeth make in a piece of nice gum. There are one or two rough points on the edge, which, Wjth a little stretch of the imagination, gives tlie appearance of a man's head with a helmet on; then, turn it an- other way, and, as Mrs Wiemer said, 'it looks like some kind of varmint or other.' It can easily be identified by any one who has ever seen it before. Other accounts of secondary importance are given by Barstow, Sherman, Mason, Bidwell, the AnwU of San Francisco, the Brpresentative Men of the Pacific, Tuthill, Hittell, Dunbar, Woods, and a multitude of newspaper writers. Going back to Bigler's diary I find it of interest to follow him for a few days after the discovery. The men hastened the work at the mill, so as to keep by their promise with Sutter, and be sooner able to dig for gold ; and though some spoke of throwing up their employment, yet the fear that the mines were not rich deterred them. On Sundays, however, they went into the tail-race, and scratching about with their butcher knives frequently obtained from three to eight dollars. The first gold discovery be- yond the limits of the Coloma saw-mill was on Sun- day, the 6th of February. Early that morning Bigler said he would cross the stream and try the bare rocks facing the saw-mill; Barger said he would go with him, and the two started, taking only their knives. Up to this time none of the mill hands knew the simple process of washing, nor had they ever seen rockers ; the way they gathered the gold was to pick it up grain by grain as it lay on the rocks, or with their knives dig it out from the crevices and holes. On this Sunday Bigler secured ten dollars. For de- termining the value of gold-dust, he made a light pair of wooden scales ; and by balancing twelve and a half cents in silver with gold-dust, he formed a ratio of one bit to two dollars, twenty-five cents to four dollars, and so on. Bigler seems to have been the only one who was seriously affected by the news of the gold discovery. Not content to wait till the next Sunday, he on Saturday afternoon threw down his pick, for he with Brown and others were digging at the race, and WHAT BIGLER DID. 77 broke out, ''I say, Brown, let us have your gun, I want to shoot some ducks." Brown told him to take it, and Biofler left them. As he walked alon^- the river banks he kept thinking of gold ; and when about half a mile below the mill he fancied that on the op- posite side of the stream the rocks looked similar to the one whereon he had found gold the previous Sun- day. They were bare, and it also seemed that there had formerly been a slide ; so taking off his clothes he waded over, and found the ground glistening with golden dust. The next day was rainy, so the men remained within doors ; but Bigler, without saying a word to any one, started down the river, crossed over to the same rocks, and obtained eight dollars. On the following Sunday, still keeping his own counsel, he went to the same spot and picked up a little over an ounce and a half All through the next week he worked steadily at the mill; "but about this gold, if there was anything in it," he asked himself, "should not the brethren elsewhere know of it ? " So he wrote of it to Jesse Martin, Israel Evans, and Ephraim Green, three of his former messmates in the Mormon battalion, then at the flouring-mill, but asked theT not to mention it to any one, unless to those in whom they could trust. On Tuesday, the 22d of February, a fall of snow stopped work, and while the men were at breakfast Marshall walked into the cabin and said, "Boys, it is going to be slippery to-day," pointing to the upper story of the saw-mill, which had to be raised, "and rather bad about putting up the frame; you may work if you see fit, or let it alone." Tlie men w^ere glad to take a holiday, and each one had an excuse. Alick Stevens declared he wanted to mend his trousers; Brown thought he would prepare a dish of peas ; and Bigler, who w^as present, said to Brown, "If you will let me have your gun, I will go and shoot deer." "Take it," was the reply. Bigler started, and climbing a hillock a little to the west of the mill, looked about as hunters do before choosing Y8 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL. their course. His eye glancing down the river fell upon the rocks where he had twice found gold. He hesitated for a moment", then turned to the right, made for the river, and was soon opposite his favorite place. The late rains had swollen the stream, and the water was very cold. This did not deter him, for undressing and carrying his gun and clothes, he waded over ; but when he reached the opposite bank lie was so benumbed that he could not work. He tried to light a fire, but his fingers refused to hold the flint and steel. He then tried to catch fire from his gun, a cap-lock, but while in the water the*cliarge had got wet. The only way left was to run and jump ; and the most exasperating part of it was that right before him, staring him in the face, was what he sought, and for which he had braved the danger of deadly cramps, but which now he was powerless to grasp. Snow had fallen ; the day was cloudy, and the mists heavy. On the bare rock the snow soon melted ; in the crevices and deep places it remained. As soon as he became a little warm, Bigler set himself to work, first search- ing the upper rocks, thence slowly working his way down to the water's edge, where it was so plentiful that he spent the remainder of the day picking it up, grain by grain, from the tiniest speck to the lump worth over five dollars. As he dug out the gold, he put it in his cap. The labor was so engrossing that night came on before he was awai-e of it. As he arose, and tried to straighten himself, he cried out witli pain. He thought his back was broken; and without recrossing the river, he made his way along the bank, until when opposite the dam, he called for Brown to bring over the raft. Meanwhile the suspicions of his comrades had been aroused, and no sooner had he reached the cabin than they began to question him. Why had he crossed the river ? Or if he wished to hunt on that side why had he not crossed it in the morning ? It was no use trying to deceive them further, nor was Bigler in the HUNTING FOR GOLD. 79 humor for it. Drawing the rag in which the gold was wrapped from his pocket — "No," exclaims the narrator parenthetically **not that exactly either; I will tell the truth Mr Bancroft ; I had tied it up for safe-keeping in the corner of my shirt,"^ — he showed it to his friends. They took it from him, weighed it, and found that he had srathered a little short of an ounce and a half There was no further secret dig- ging for Bigler, for on the next Sunday, the 27th of February, five others determined to accompany him ; and they spent the day, lying prostrate with their faces to the ground, scratching and hunting for the precious particles. That night arrived from below three of the Mormon boys, Fieiield- Sidney Willis, and Wilford Hudson, with their guns and blankets on their backs. It ap- pears the secret written to Martin, Green, and Evans, was told, for easier keeping, to other three, who find- ing it heavy, started at once for the saw-mill, saying to their companions that they were going on a visit, and for a few days' shooting. Marshall happened to be in the house when they arrived, and instead of being offended at Bigler's faithlessness, talked good humoredly about their prospects till a late hour, and gave Hudson permission to dig in the tail-race. Therefore early next morning the three went thither, and not long after Hudson picked up a lump worth about six dollars. On Thursday, the 2d of March, the Mormons took their departure for the flouring-mill, Willis and Hudson following the river to look for gold, and Fiefield, accompanied by Bigler, going by the road. All four met at the flouring-mill. All the way down the river, though passing over some of the rich- est deposits, Willis #.nd Hudson gathered only fifty cents ; and so disgusted were they that they refused to have anything more to do with the business, though urged by their friends, who volunteered to go back with them. Bigler, however, returned to 80 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL. ^ Coloma, where nothing of note occurred till Sunday, the 11th of March, when Ma,rshall started the saw- mill running. The following week was spent in deep- ening the fall in the tail-race ; but on Sunday all went gold-digging, when Bigler secured two ounces. About this time Bigler took charge cf the Indians, teach- ing them to saw and chop wood. Though anxious enough to learn, they were extremely awkward, and were continually hurting or cutting themselves. He worked in this manner until Friday, the 7th of April, when he, Stevens, and Brown, started for the fort to have a settlement with Sutter, and to tell him that they wished to leave for Salt Lake. On the evening of the next day they arrived at the flouring- mill, and found the place well-nigh deserted. They were told that Willis and Hudson, with others, were up the river getting gold. Bigler stayed over Sunday at the flouring-mill to make arrangements as to what they should buy of Sutter for their intended journey. Those present agreed to send in advance a few men to pioneer a route across the Sierra, the main body to be in readiness to start in the beginning of June, with the exception of eight men who were to leave the fol- lowing Saturday with an express for the States. Next day Bigler and his friends started for the fort with Browett who was to act as si3okesman, but were una- ble to see Sutter, or buy the seeds, cattle, horses, and tv/o brass cannon they wished. On Tuesday they left the fort for home, intending to turn their atten- tion for the rest of their stay to gold-digging. As they could not make the journey in a day, they en- camped for the night at a creek fifteen miles from the flouring-mill, and next morning Bigler, whose mind was running in one direction, began to look for gold; and he and his four companions |oon found about ten dollars. As Willis and Hudson were not far away, they determined to look them up and see what success had attended them ; so keeping close to the river they soon came across them, at what afterward was called DOINGS OF THE MOR^IONS. SI Mormon island. Five persons, Ira Willis, Jesse B. Martin, Ephraim Green, Israel Evans, together with Hudson and Sidney Willis, were at work, and had, on that day, obtained two hundred and fifty dollars. Bigler here noticed an improvement in mining, for one cr two of the Mormons had Indian baskets, and were able in a short time to wash out from twenty-five cents to two dollars. Bio-ler arrived at Coloma on the 13th, and from that date he and his friends began mining. It was hard work, for the only tools they had were their knives. He tried to get an Indian basket, but none were available ; and so had to use a tray on which he kneeded dough to serve as a washer, while Alick Stevens did good service with his wooden wash-bowl. There was only one tin pan, about the size of an eight quart basin, among all the miners ; so they had to carry the dirt in sacks from the dr}'- gulches, a mile below the mill, to the river, some five to six hun- dred yards distant, and there wash and separate the gold. In less than three weeks after Bigler's arrival at the saw-mill the great rush to the mines took place, and soon the little gulches were thronged with eager gold-seekers, who disputed Marshall's claim to the land, and dug where they pleased. Among the strangers was an old Sonoran who was evidently a miner. He duof a hole and filled it with water. Then he fitted into it a cotton sheet, into which he shovelled dirt, which the water dissolved, leaving the gold sticking to the cloth. Bigler and Brown then tried the same method, but with partial success. It was at this juncture, the middle of June 1848, that Bigler, and many others of the Mormon battal- ion, turned their faces toward the new city of the saints. None tell us how hard it was for them to leave the fascinations of the gold fields for the distant desert, or whether it was hard at all. But it is very certain that there were few in the canons of the Cal. Int. Poc. 6 82 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL. Sierra foothills who would then have turned their back on Mammon for the service of any other god. After this the world came flocking in. The region round Marshall's mill soon swarmed with gold-seekers. Two thousand diggers were at work there, with knives, picks, shovels, sticks, tin pans, wooden bowls, willow baskets, and cradles, picking crevices, scraping rocky beds, riddling gravelly sand, and washing dirt for the metal. Shortly after there were some four thousand upon the ground, if we include natives, who were mostly employed by white men. It M^as then dis- covered that all about in the vicinity of Marshall's mill gold abounded. Virgin placers were found on Feather river, on Deer creek, on Yuba river. New discoveries followed in quick succession, each adding fuel to the flame. Every gulch and ravine was pros- pected, and there was scarcely a spot where gold was not, though not always in paying quantiti'^s. Finally the fact became apparent that all along the base of the Sierra, on every affluent of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, from one end of the great valley of California to the other, almost every rivulet, gulch, and canon was rich in gold. "Some fifty thousand persons," writes one who deals largely in exaggeration, on the 8th of Novem- ber, 1848: "are drifting up and down the slopes of the great Sierra, of every hue, language, and clime, tumultuous and confused as a flock of wild geese tak- ing wing at the crack of a gun, or autumnal leaves strewn on the atmospheric tide by the breath of the whirlwind. All are in search of gold ; and, with eyes diluted to the circle of the moon, rush this way and that as some new discovery, or fictitious tale of suc- cess may suggest." Says another in a letter to the New York Journal of Commerce, from Monterey under date of August 29, 1848, "At present the people are running over the country and picking it out of the earth here and there, just as a thousand hogs let CLERICAL EXAGGERATION. 83 loose In a forest would root up ground nuts. Some get eight or ten ounces a day, and the least active one or two. They make most who employ the wild In- dians to hunt it for them. There is one man who has sixty Indians in his employ ; his profits are a dollar a minute. The wild Indians know nothing of its value, and wonder what the pale faces want to do with it; and they will give an ounce of it for the same weight of coined silver, or a thimbleful of glass beads, or a glass of grog. And white men themselvos often give an ounce of it, which is worth at our mint eighteen dollars or more, for a bottle of brandy, a bottle of soda powders, or a plug of tobacco." Then streams began to form in every quarter; in- land streams and ocean currents, social tricklings and oozings from scattered and far distant homes, gather- ing into rivulets, and expanding into human rivers, increasing in strength and volume as they neared that worshipful gold. Bands of devotees were organ- ized for pilgrimages, in which Christendom and pagandom might join alike, in which all the sons of men might join and bow before one common shrine. In vain we search the annals of mankind for a similar flockino;. The nearest akin to it were the Christian crusades made in the ninth century, and subsequently, for the recovery from profane hands of the tomb of Christ — wild fanaticism, folly incredible, yet under providence working out for civilization the grandest results, bringing together antagonistic socie- ties, forcing oppugnant elements to coalesce, and melt- ing and moulding humanity into more useful and comelier forms. But the world was smaller then than now, and although the numbers were large they comprised comparatively few nationalities, and the dis- tance travelled was less. In the nineteenth century there were cosmopolitan crusades for gold wherewith to make rich the finder, and add volume to the world's circulatinsf medium. Was the gold sous^ht in these modern pilgrimages essential to human well-being, 84 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL, as appeared to be the quasi possession of Christ's sepulchre ? The central idea of the Christian cru- sades was fanaticism; that of the Plutonic crusades was avarice. Which is better or worse, which has done the more for or against human progress, is not here a point of discussion. The question is, whether gold is more valuable than religion, or avarice a nobler passion than fanaticism ? Has the world then grown no wiser nor more sober iu ten centuries ? Yet as in the mediaeval crusades great benefits from great evils came, so in the latter-day crusades for gold, good will come of them ; but the great good God there- from designed for man, California has yet to tell. First those nearest at hand felt the subtle influence. The ox-team of the emigrant turned toward Coloma ; the trapper left his peltries, and the ranchero his herds, curious to see what this thing should mean. The excitement was felt by the devoted Mormons, some of whom attempted a small settlement on the Stanislaus, which they called New Hope, and immedi- ately they were reconciled to digging gold as if by gen- eral agreement. Sutter was nearly ruined by the dis- covery. On the instant his laborers deserted him almost to a man, leaving a mill unfinished, and all his property exposed to the depredations of the rabble, which were more serious than those of the natives had ever been. They drove off his cattle, squatted on his land, and then combined and beat him in the courts, when courts were established. Marshall was swept away by the tide. Immediately following the discovery, most of the provisions for the mines were obtained at Sutter's fort ; then traders went to Sonoma for supplies. One would think that these early settlers, with leagues of land and thousands of horses and cattle, and of native la- borers, should have reaped a harvest from the gold crop. And so they did, most of them, at first, but so strange and unprecedented was it all to them that they became bewildered ; gold poured in upon them EFFECT OF THE GOLD DISCOVERY. 85 SO freely that it seemed as if it would never be want- ing;' ao^ain. Between the embarcadero and the fort, "boatmen were shouting and swearing; waggoners were whistling and hallooing, and cracking their whips at their straining horses, as they toiled along with heavily laden wagons to the different stores within the building ; groups of horsemen were riding to and fro, and crowds of people were moving about on foot. It was evident the gold mania increased in force as the eagerly longed-for El Dorado was approached. Every store and shed was being crammed with bales of goods, barrels of flour, and a thousand other things for which a demand had- suddenly sprung up. The captain's own house was like a hotel crowded with more visitors than it could accommodate." The incomers could not obtain accommodations within the fort, and were obliged to content themselves with camping outside. ''It was not easy to pick our way through the crowds of strange people who were moving backwards and forwards in every direction," says one who was present. "Carts were passing to and fro ; groups of Indians squatting on their haunches were chattering together, and displaying to one an- other the flaring red and yellow handkerchiefs, the scarlet blankets, and muskets of the most worthless Brummagem make, for which they had been exchang- ing their bits of gold. Inside the stores the bustle and noise were even greater. Some half a dozen sharp- visaged Yankees, in straw hats and loose frocks, were drivinof hard barg^ains for dollars with the crowd of customers who were continually pouring in to bar- ter a portion of their stock of gold for coffee and to- bacco, breadstuff, brandy, and bowie-knives. Of spades and mattocks there were none to be had. In one corner, at a railed-off desk, a quick-eyed old man was busily engaged with weights and scales, setting his own value on the lumps of golden ore or the bags of dust which were being handed over to him, and in exchange for which he told out the estimated quantity 86 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAAV-MILL. of dollars. These dollars quickly returned to the original deposit, in payment for goods bought at the other end of the store." Owing to the scarcity of coin, gold-dust did not bring over two thirds of its real value. On the fourth of June, Mormon island and its approaches presented scenes of the greatest excitement. A numerous cara- van was moving along toward the no longer ridiculed El Dorado. In July, Colonel Mason, then military governor of California, visited Coloma, and found Marshall living;- 7 7 ;— , near the mill, while there were many persons at work on the river above and below him. Crossing over to a stream, since known as Weber creek, three or four miles below the mill, he found at work one Sunol, with about thirty employed natives, who received their pay in merchandise. Eight miles above was a large number of whites and Indians, some working in the river bed, and others in the small valleys. These latter were exceedingly rich, two ounces being consid- ered the average yield for a day's work. In a small gutter, not more than a hundred yards long by four feet wide and two or three feet deep, two men had shortly before obtained $17,000 worth of gold. An- other small ravine had yielded $12,000, and on every side there were hundreds of such. The poor natives gathered round to pick up a few crumbs of civilization, and with a new money buy new comforts to supply new wants. Gold-dust by the bushel had been within tlieir reach for ages ; but with- out the conventional value placed upon it by the cun- ning of progress, it was of no use to them. Now, de- prived of their natural resources, they herded about the mining camps, being permitted occasionally by the kinder-hearted miners to wash a pan of dirt from their claims, or to sweep the sluice-boxes. Frequently they obtained quite a little quantity of gold on the rivers by scraping the crevices of •claims abandoned by the white men. Even in the days of their degeneration, SAVAGES AND GENTE DE RAZOK 87 the men maintained their lordly dignity, and left all the gold-digging to the women. These obtained sometimes two or three dollars a day each, and with the proceeds of their labor they bought food and finery. One would think that with thousands of acres of valuable land stocked by immense herds, with gardens and orchards and fields of grahi, the influx of a vast gold-producing and agricultural population, requiring food and farms, would have made the great grant- holders monarchs of wealth and mdustry. But such was not the result. The old Mexican-Californians hereupon proved themselves a community of children. No sooner was the discovery of gold announced than hired laborers, mechanics, herders, and retainers dropped their implements, abandoned their trust, and rushed for the mines. No amount of money which the landed proprietor could offer was sufficient to hold them. Thus left defenceless, he was overrun by swarms of adventurers, who drove off his cattle, shot his Indians, and took possession of his ground. Even the sedate gente de razon caught the infec- tion, and taking with them their servants and retain- ers, hastened to the mines, and selecting a favorable spot, put their men at work, while they sat in their tents in state, or strutted about from camp to camp, or louno^ed down amono- the boulders. The relations of man and master, however, were soon severed in the mines, the one casting off old ties and and affec- tions and setting up for himself, and the other return- ing home to mourn to the end of his days over the rapacity of the Yankees, and his loss of opportunity and loss of property, which, after all, were due for the most part to himself. The soldiers in the service of the United States were also seized with the gold fever, and abandoning their posts, ran off to the placers. It was almost impossible to retain crews on their ships. The pioneer steamship, California, on her first voyage lost all her 1 88 AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL. crew; and in order to return to Panama had to en- gage men at enormous wages. Thus, while her com- mander, engaged by the owners in New York, was receiving $250 per month, the chief engineer and the black cook had $500 each, the firemen $250 each, and the seamen $200 per man. This state of things did not last long. The next steamship of the line anchored under the guns of the United States line-of- battle ship Ohio, and her men could not desert. CHAPTER V. THE JOURNEY OVERLAND. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth. — Ecclesiastes. California, in 1848, stood on none of the world's highways. It was an isolated amphitheatre, a ^; alley on which the sun was ever setting, far away from civ- ilization and the homes of the gold-worshippers. On one side were seas of land, on the other seas of water. And the water and the land both were vast and bil- lowy, trackless, and often showing their hostility to man each after its fashion. One or the other of thdse seas of desolation, or their equivalent in obstacles, must be crossed before the dragon-guarded treasure could be touched. Now the journey to the mines, occupying as it did weeks or months, and being made by companies or aggregations of men, women, and children, called forth new phases of human conduct, no less than did life at the diggings. Two days out, whether on plain or ocean, and the pilgrim began to feel himself a new being, the chrysalis from which he had emerged being his late environs. The metal of which he was made was as yet scarcely recognizable, but the fire was a-kindling which should quickly determine it. Therefore it is proper to delineate and preserve characteristic sketches of overland and ocean travel to California durino- the flush times. And first as to travel overland. The prairie seas were not wholly unknown ; even the prairie schooner (89) 90 THE JOURNEY OVERLAND. had navigated some portions of them. Since Cabeza de Vaca the Spanish castaway, Monchat Ape the learned savage, Lewis and Clarke, Fraser, Thompson, and the others first to traverse different localities, Ste- phen Long had ascended the southern branch of the Nebraska or Platte river to its source, and an overland trade had sprung up between the United States and Mexico. Ashley had ascended the north branch of the Platte, and had encamped near the head waters of the Colorado. The year following, 1824, Ashley continued his dis- coveries through the South pass to Great Salt Lake, built a fort in Utah valley and left there a hundred men. In 1826, a six-pounder cannon was drawn from Missouri 1200 miles through the wilderness, and planted within this fort. In 1827, many heavily laden wagons performed the same journey, penetrating far- ther westward ; among others, Mr Pilcher, who with forty-five men and a hundred horses crossed the Rocky Mountains by the South pass, wintered on the Colo- rado, and in the year following proceeded to Fort Colville, then recently established by the Hudson's Bay Company. From these and other points in the Great Basin, hundreds of trappers, traders, and emi- grants crossed the Sierra at the several passes between San Bernardino and Shasta, and descended into the valley of California. Smith, Jackson, and Sublette, able and enterprising men, continued the explorations of Ashley, and during the years 1828 and 1829, they traversed the whole region between the Columbia river and the Tulare lakes, and down to the borders of the sea. Smith fell a prey to the savages, it will be remembered, in 1829, after having twice crossed the continent to the Pacific ocean. In 1832 J. O. Pattie, a Missourian fur-hunter, published an account of his rambles through New Mexico, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Cali- fornia. He boated up and down the Colorado, crossed Sonora to the gulf of California, and thence to the SOME EARLY TRAVELLERS. 91 Pacific. Captain Bonneville of the United States army, while on a furlough in 1832, with a hundred men and more than twenty wagons, achieved in the •regions round the Colorado and Columbia many ad- ventures made thrilling and jocose by the facile pen of Irving Captain Wyeth, of Massachusetts, about this time entertained plans similar to those devised by John Jacob Astor in 1809, which were to concentrate the fur-trade of the United States, and establish unin- terrupted communication by means of a line of posts be- tween the Atlantic and the Pacific. Wyeth's project was to establish trading posts on the Pacific slope, and send thither manufactured goods, bring back furs and salmon, and also ship furs to China. To this end he made two overland expeditions to the Colum- bia, planted Fort Hall on Lewis river, north of Great Salt Lake about a hundred miles, and a fishing post on Wappatoo island, near the junction of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, and within a short distance of the coast. Then began emigration to flow into Ore- gon from the United States, as alone the eastern part of our domain was then called: agriculturists and religious teachers, founded little colonies in the valley of the Willamette, and in the regions of Walla Walla and Spokane methodists and presbyterians opened schools, and Jesuits from Saint Louis, notable among whom were fathers De Smet, Mengarini, and Point, attempted the conversion of the natives. In 1839, at Walla Walla, was set up the first printing press on the Pacific coast north of Mexico. Mean- while, notwithstanding the efforts of the Mexican au- thorities to prevent it, stragglers, — trappers, traders, and emigrants, — percolated through the mountains bounding California on the east, and trespassed on her lands. These intruders would sometimes engage themselves to work for the Californians, or to marry their daughters, and receive grants of land, cattle, and the catholic religion. " A party of trappers from Mis- souri arrived at Fort Yuma in 1827, among which 92 TEE JOURNEY OVERLAND. were some emigrants for California, The glowing stories of the fur-hunters concerning the beauty, fer- tility, and climate of California, between the years 1825 and 1840, found here and there listeners who determined to make the venture. After all this comes John C. Fremont callino; him- self explorer, and pathfinder, which latter truly he was, — finding the paths others had made rather than making them himself. Three great emigrations, each three years apart, mark the exodus of the people inhabiting the frontier states, and the tide of overland travel westward to the slope of the Pacific. The first was that to Oregon in 1843, some of which on nearing the Pacific turned ofi" and entered California, guided along the Humboldt by the famous mountaineer, Joe Walker. At this time many kept the Oregon trail as far as Fort Hall, or Foit Boise, on Lewis river, before branching off for Cali- fornia. The second was that to California in 1846, pending hostilities between the United States and Mexico. These adventurers were assured that California was a most delightful country, one every way desirable to settle in ; that it was thinly peopled, and except along the seaboard almost unoccupied; and that now the nation was roused to arms, engaged in a hand to hand conflict with a weaker power, which would probably result in the acquisition of all that territory by the stronger; or at all events the United States could protect citizens settled on the Mexican frontier, if not, finally, they could protect themselves. This spirit and this emigration were encouraged, both by the government and by popular feeling. The result proved as had been anticipated ; scarcely had the emigrants of 1846 arrived in the valley of California, when the whole magnificent domain fell a prize into the lap of the United States, and these hardy hunters, ox-drivers, and land-tillers, found themselves upon THE THREE GREAT IMMIGRATIO"NS. 93 the spot just in time to reap a rich harvest. It was in this year, and the year previous, that the Mor- mons, having been previously expelled from Nauvoo, Illinois, made their way out of the accursed land, and found an encampment at Council Bluff on the Mis- souri river, which was the rendezvous, or place of preparation for a further westward journey, a journey which should place the Rocky Mountains a barrier between them and the hated gentiles. The third sfreat overland emigration was in the spring and summer of 1849, when Gold! was the watchword along the line, and Ho for the diggings! was painted on the canvas wagon-covers ; when ava- rice warmed the heart, and fired the brain, and steeled the sinews; when in the dreams of the ox-drivers wagon loads of yellow nuggets rolled out of rocky canons into pastures green as Arcadian vales, wherein the cattle might graze, and drink from the Pactolean streams that watered it. It was during the middle one of these great migra- tions that the Donner tragedy occurred. It was in 1846 when a party attempted a new route from Fort Bridger, round the southern end of Great Salt Lake, and through the Truckee pass of the Sierra Nevada. The company was composed of George Donner, wife, and five children ; Jacob Donner, wife, and seven chil- dren; J. F. Beed, wife, and four children; W. H. Eddy, Breen, Pike, Foster, and others, with women and children; in all about eighty souls. The journey across the plains under favorable con- ditions was by no means an unpleasant one. Though somewhat monotonous, it was capable of being made both healthful and pleasurable. Many a one who, reduced by disease, had set out upon this journey with little hope of ever reaching the end, arrived in California well and strong, like a man newly made; many a one, alas! set out well and strong who met death ere his journey was completed. In company 94 THE JOURNEY OVERLAND. with others, some bound for Oregon and some for Cahfornia, the Donner party had a prosperous jour- ney from the Missouri, and passed the great divide in good health and spirits. The longer half of the journey was accomplished; the cattle were in good condition, and provisions abundant ; it was yet mid- summer, ample time thought they to escape the snows of th§ frowning Sierra. So, buoyant with an- ticipations of a speedy and prosperous termination of their travels, they arrived at Fort Bridger, one hun- dred miles east of Salt Lake, on the 25th of July. It was their intention to have continued in the Oregon trail as far as Fort Hall, or beyond, before turning southward toward California, but they were induced to deviate from the usual route by L. W. Hastings, who assured them that he had found a way shorter and better than the old one, a cut-off it was called, the name referrino- to the route and not the travellers. Nor did Mr Hastings wilfully misrepresent matters as many charged him with doing, for his route was essentially the same as that taken by the emigration of 1849, and by the overland stage and railway. A. J. Grayson, the eminent ornithologist of Mexico and California, led a party of pioneers in this emigra- tion. He was accompanied by his young, devoted wife, and out of solicitude for her welfare, or other cause, he escaped two great dangers of the journey as by intuition. In a letter from San Franciseo written February 2'2, 1847, speaking of Hastings and his route which was represented to be better and 250 miles shorter than the old way, Mr Graysen fays : " This news created some excitement among the emi- grants; some were for going the new route without reflecting, whilst the more prudent were for going by the old trail via Fort Hall. I for one consulted Cap- tain Walker, who happened to be at Fort Bridger and well acquainted with both routes, and also a man whom I could believe ; so I took his advice and went by the old trail, together with a respectable portion ROUl'ES AND CUT-OFFS. 95 of emigrants." Arrived at Fort Hall there appeared another allurement in the shape of a cat-off. "Here we met with a Mr Applegate," continues Mr Gray- sen, "just from Oregon, who came that far to meet the emigration, and conducted them through a new route which he had discovered over the Cascade mountains to Oregon. This was good news to the emigrants, as it was represented as being a nearer and better route of course. This caused a good many to go to Oregon who were bound for California, as they thought they would reach there before they could California. But the nature of the route led me to believe it a very difficult one, if not impassable for wagons, which I have since learned was the case. This route continues on the California trail nearly to the California mountains, where it takes a north- west direction over two lofty ranges of mountains — the Cascade and the Umpqua." Resting three days at Fort Bridger, the Donner company turned their faces southward, passed Salt Lake, and on toward the Truckee river. But alas ! the farthest way round would have been the shortest way to their destination. Although this route was shorter and better than the other, it was then new, unbeaten, and often these emigrants were compelled to stop a day, or two days, sometimes eight days to explore, to cut away underbrush, to grade a bluff or bridge a marsh. Arriving at the southern end of Salt Lake they fell into the track of a company in advance of them, and so for a time made better pro- gress. But short was their sheen. At a place to which they gave the name Twenty Wells, they spent the night of September 6th. Some of the wells, which vary from six inches to nine feet in diameter, they sounded to a depth of seventy feet and found no bottom. After a hard day's drive, the next evening they encamped in a beautiful meadow covered with luxuriant grass, and where were natural wells like the others, Upon a split stick conspicuously placed 96 THE JOURNEY OVERLAND. they found a letter from Hastings, who had gone before, saymg that between this point and the next water were two days and nights of hard driving ; so they rested the next day and refreshed themselves. Cutting grass for the cattle, and laying in a supply of water for the two days' desert, the Great Salt Lake plain they called it, at daylight on the morning of September 9th they broke camp. It was a dangerous thing to do, to cast themselves, their wives and little ones, their cattle and all their belongings, into an unknown desert where they had been assured that with no mishaps, and by straight and hard driving, there were two days between them and water; but there was now no help for it. The result proved most disastrous. The third day, at noon, Eddy and some others, with their cattle, suc- ceeded in reaching a spring seventy-five miles distant from the last wells, but they were obliged to leave their wagons twenty miles behind. About dark Reed came up, and stated that the rest of the wagons were forty miles behind, and that the fainting cattle were being urged forward to tlie water by the drivers. Reed and Eddy immediately started back, the latter with a bucket of water, which he carried five miles for a prostrate ox. Reed met his cattle with their drivers ten miles back, and went on to assist the Donners ; but Reed's cattle all died before tliey reached water. It was not until the evenino; of the 15tli that all ar- rived in camp, having left many of their wagons scat- tered along the track, and half their animals dead. Affairs now began to look serious. Some families were completely ruined; dread forebodings began to arise in the minds of all. With the ill-fated desert behind them they could not retreat ; before them the way was dark and uncertain. The surviving cattle were exhausted, and the woodwork of the wagons shrank in the dry air until the spokes rattled in the wheels, and the tires seemed ready to fall off. Tak- ing the cows and all loose animals, feeble and dis- THE DONNER PARTY. 97 heartened they continued their way, but were soon obhged to bury a portion of their property. That day they encountered an ominous snow-storm, and made but six miles; the next day they passed over some low mountains, and encamped ni a well-watered valley. October 1st saw them slowly travelling along down Ofirden river. And now begins a tale whose sickening details blot pages of our annals ; a tale before which I would gladly close my eyes and lay down my pen ; a tale which calls in question whether indeed there be in man, left to himself, any divine spark, any innate good. More bloody than beasts, more insane than demons, these human castaways in a desert wilder- ness, surromided by their wives and children, first shot at by savages as they pass along, fall to fighting among themselves. Some oxen becoming unruly, two teams are entangled, whereupon the drivers swear ; then one of them threatens to thrash the owner, and dealing him a heavy blow with the butt end of his whip, receives in return a stab which stretches him dead upon the plain. Reed, who does the killing, though regretfully and in self-defence, is driven from the camp. Thereupon he marches on before the oth- ers, dodging the arrows of the savages and giving the company warning of impending attacks, and thus passes over the mountains into California. Continu- ing their way, an old, worn-out man, whose feet had swollen to bursting, is left behind to die. In vain does my unwilling credulity look for escape; in vain do I seek some excuse for the pitiless act ; the doers of the deed themselves tell the story, and say their cattle could not draw him. Hardcoop, from Antwerp, Belgium, sixty years of age, ill and worn out, was the abandoned man, and Eddy, the narrator of the fact, he who refused him conveyance. One Kiesburg, a most loathsome villain, of whom more hereafter, thrust from his wagon the old man, and when besought by his companic^ns to return for him, replied, " I will not it must be admitted that travellers with their silly questions and frivolous complaints, often severely tax their patience; but this does not warrant curt replies and continued and systematic insults, such as were heaped upon helpless California passengers. Such conduct is cow- ardly, and in every way contemptible. Travellers will grumble and be unreasonable ; carriers and hotel- keepers must expect this. It must be admitted, more- over, that as a rule those complain most, who, as a right, should expect least. He who has the fewest comforts at home finds the most fault with the discom- forts of travel. In such cases the lowest class usually make the loudest noise with their cries of hardship and imposition. To-day, quiet, well-behaved passen- gers are almost always treated well, no matter how ill-organized and appointed the conveyance may be.. There are standard maxims of travel, however^ which, it would be well to remember. Would you have CAt. INT. POC. 9 130 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. comfort in travelling, then submit with resignation to all ordinary impositions. Resign yourself at the out- set to the carrier as his victim, as the arbiter, for the time, of your fate. Do not expect land luxuries at sea ; man is a terrestrial and not an aqueous animal. Not the least in the catalogue of annoyances, fretful- ness, and complainings, the passengers bring upon them- selves. Go into the hot, fetid air of the second cabin and steerage, then be ashamed to nurse your discom- forts in your upper room. The smell of oil from the machinery, and filth from various quarters is nauseat- ing, it is true; but I have suffered more from the disgusting behavior of passengers than from filthy ships and discourteous emplo^^es. Nor do I mean to say that Californians are especially bad travellers; as a rule they were, even in early times, orderly, quiet, and well-behaved ; and when time had tempered their spirits, hilarity and good humor prevailed. Other- wise how should 1500 men, women, and children have been able to exist, crowded into close quarters for nearly a month, and much of the time under a tropical sun ? Every sensible man then setting out for California well knew that he should have to rough it; or, if he did not know it at the start he soon found it out, and he soon saw that he might as well begin to make the best of discomforts on ship board as any where else. Those so thinking yielded gracefully to what they saw was inevitable, and found that after all happiness does not depend so much on having things a little better than our neighbor, and that a little comfort, with a heart disposed to be contented, carries with it much happiness. Besides, all were certain of fortune, or at least felicity, the moment they reached San Francisco; and so, in place of brooding over present privations, they rather dreamed of future plenty. There were notable exceptions to these systematic impositions, even on the Atlantic side ; while on the Pacific, the rule was reversed. I have often been told ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC SERVICE. 131 by officers of the Pacific company that no one regretted, or more heartily condemned, the pohcy of the Atlantic company than their managers. From the first the service on the Pacific was in marked contrast to that upon the Atlantic; but not until the autumn of 1865 were the managers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company able to rid themselves of that influence which rested so long like an incubus on the line. At this time the control of the entire line passed into their hands, when the same courtesies and comforts were extended to travellers on the Atlantic as had hitherto been customary on the Pacific. The Pacific company had frequently overcrowded their steamers, but this sometimes was an act of charity rather than cruelty ; as, for example, when the California reached Panama on her first voyage, the cholera was raging there ; and this, together with the often ill-advised anxiety to reach the land of gold, had in many in- stances drawn the last dollar from the pockets of those congregated on the Isthmus; so that the steamer, which had accommodations for only 120 passengers, sailed with four times that number. As high as $1,200 was paid on this trip for a steerage passage. Gradually the service became perfected. Larger and yet more magnificent steamers were built from time to time, with promenade decks a sixteenth of a mile in length, and these were well appointed and ably oflScered. The line rose to the head of the world's marine, and became an honor to the American nation. From this time until the completion of the Pacific railway, it carried more passengers, at fairer rates, and, according to distance, varieties of climate, and numbers, with fewer discomforts than did ever another oceanic line. Four, five, and six thousand people passed and repassed monthly on its vessels, and mer- chandise was carried which, at from $45 to $75 a ton, aggregated millions of dollars freight-money. One reason why the passage on the Pacific can be made more pleasant is that the ships are built higher out of 132 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. water, more like floating hotels, more spacious and commodious than those on the rougher Atlantic. When I reached New York, in February 1852, the rush for California still continued, though in a some- what modified form. A little regularity was emerging from the original chaos. The steamship office was not now mobbed the night before the advertised day for selling tickets, nor were sailing vessels despatched daily for Chagres, to empty their passengers into that infectious climate, leaving them to complete their journey as best they might. For this, however, the ship owners were not to blame. So wild had been the excitement, so insane were men to get at this newly discovered gold, that thousands would recklessly take passage on any craft to Chagres, and trust their chances to get from Panamd to San Francisco. This they did knowing the berths on all the steamers were engaged for months to come, and that multitudes were waiting passage, both at New York and Panama ; but as it was every man for himself, each was sure that by some means, natural or supernatural, he would manage to get through. Before this, clamorous crowds used to collect in front of the ticket-office previous to the departure of every steamer, and there remain for days and nights, so as to be ready the mo- ment the door was opened. Sailing vessels were taken from the fishing or freighting service, and fitted up with a temporary deck below, the space between which and the upper deck formed a dormitory and saloon. Round the sides of this between-decks were three or four tiers of open berths, and in the centre piles of luggage, passengers' stores, rough, hanging shelves for tables, and boxes and benches for chairs, there being no such thing as caste among the passen- gers, or cabin, or separate apartments, save the cap- tain's room. And thus, like the boat of Charon, these vessels plied, and ere they landed their prurient THE DEPARTURE. 133 freight on distant shores, fresh crowds awaited fresh departures. There is always something sad, and much that is solemn, and to an unconcerned eye-witness no little of the grotesque, in the embarkation of passengers for a long voyage. It is next to dying or being mar- ried ; the future of it is all uncertain. Friends linger over the farewell as though it were the last, as indeed it is to some. Mother and child, sister and brother, husband and wife cling to each other in yet more frantic embrace, as if their heart-strings would snap, and all unconscious thus offer themselves as a -spec- tacle for the amusement of the heartless and indiffer- ent, to say nothing of turning their pockets an easy prey to wicked professionals. Midst the turmoil of passengers, the jostlings of porters with trunks, baskets, and boxes which they deposit by stateroom doors, the bundles of clothing, mining utensils, perhaps a new gold-washing ma- chine or a forcing-pump scattered about the deck; the rushing hither and thither of seamen makino; ready for a start, and the general confusion attending embarking, the deck of a steamer an hour before she sails IS the best place in the world wherein to study human nature, as mdeed is the whole trip. Especially if you are a passenger and alone, with a philosophic turn of mind, you may look upon the polyglot assem- blage and noisy medley as in it but not of it. Glanc- ing from one to another you attempt to read the character and purpose of each ; involuntarily you find yourself speculating as to their several relations, who goes and who remains, and the relations of one to another. There is a melancholy young man, married but a week ; and there another who pales the mute agony of the first, for he has been married but a day, and their wives do not accompany them. Poor fellows! There is a conscious bride blushing her secret to every 134 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORPIA. starer, while the young husband beside her tries in vain to appear as if used to it. There is the lean and hungry, most bland and voluble lawyer, with long hooked nose and bald head, with sword cane and con- cealed dering;er : and there the hard headed and hard- hearted politician, who deals in the patriotism of the American people as the pawnbroker deals in the sufferings of the poor. This political huckster, hav- ing had in his time a monopoly of certain souls in certain districts, but having meanwhile sold his own soul to Satan many times on one side of the conti- nent, now seeks a new market on the other. There is the little scrawny avaricious old woman, probably the most disgusting, at the same time the most piti- able object on board, going out solitary and alone to wash or nurse or otherwise work and hoard, if per- adventure she may scrape together a little gold be- fore she dies. There is a family, father, mother, and daughter, the latter of that silly simpering age which fancies the eyes of all the world to be perpetually resting on herself; there the man of business with two females in charge, bustling about under his load of responsibility; there the sleepy young man, there the lack-a-daisical young woman — sheep among wolves — and there one, ill-mannered and awkward, fresh from clod-breaking and swine-tending, yet whose eyes flash intelligence and whose broad brow and firm lip show fifty years of determined perseverance and self- denial, if so be so much should stand between him and success. Noah's ark presented no more incongruous gather- ing. More than thirty different nations are repre- sented on this deck ; men and women of almost every land in Christendom and many beyond that line, of divers colors and strange speech, the lank smart Yan- kee, always at home; the tall bony hairy western man, uncultured yet thoughtful, who comes so far east to get a start for a farther west; cattle drivers from the north and negro drivers from the south ; QUALITY OF PASSENGERS. 135 parcliment-armed dignitaries fresh from Washington squabble and bribery, and disappointed office-seekers; Texan rangers and placeless Mexico-fighters with occupation gone ; pompous, portly Britons ; sarcastic, scheming, polite Frenchmen ; sagacious, imperturbable Germans ; fiery Castilians ; omnipresent, silent Jews ; negroes, mulattoes, and quadroons, — mixtures of every shade uniting in their vain affectation and pre- tentious disposition all the evils of their diverse an- cestry with few inherited good qualities. And such diversity of costume, and cast of countenance — the Broadwa}^ dandy with tight pantaloons; the profes- sional in black broadcloth, high shirf collar, and tall hat; the western huntino'-shirt and wild-cat head- dress, and the loose butcher's jacket and greasy boots ; the boatman's pea-jacket and nor'wester ; the Mexi- can's blanket and sombrero, and all profusely orna- mented with pistols, bowie-knives, and rifles slung from belt and shoulder. Here is a man with musket and bayonet, and yonder an apparent attache of some company organized for fighting for gold, with an alarm trumpet tied to his neck. And in their feat- ures you may read of wit and of cloudy brains, of merriment and of gravity, of piety and of blasphemy, of honesty and of speculation. Military officers en- liven the scene with their brass-buttoned uniforms, and faces glowing under the influence of the good things of life. One wonders where they all came from. Evidently some are fresh from the soft endearments of home, fresh from the embrace of mother, sister, or newly made wife, alone in that motley company without the dust of distance yet upon them, whose eyes moisten, and cheeks blanch, and hearts sadden at thoughts of untried waters and lands, which are to separate them from loved ones, perhaps forever; others are as reckless and indifferent to their future as the hardened sinner is of heaven, men who never had a home and care little whether their feet rest on ship or shore, or tread 136 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. the soil of America or Australia, so that their domi- nant passion finds solace. Thus the conglomerate and cosmopolitan character of the passengers give us a foresight of what we may expect on reaching our destination. As the hour for departure approaches the confusion increases. Loaded carriages drive hastily up to the gang way, discharge their contents, and drive away, The mails come down in heavy wagons and are taken on board. Excited passengers rush hither and thither, knocking against one another, looking after lost baggage, hunting missing friends and searching for their rooms. The wharves and shipping are crowded to see us off. The cries of seamen and porters mingle with the hoarse roar of steam; the gong sounds for visitors to go ashore, hasty "good- byes" and "God bless you" rise from full hearts and fall from quivering lips; the captain mounts the paddle-box, the gang-plank is drawn ashore, orders to "cast off the hawser" and "turn ahead" are given, the ponderous walking-beam moves, the paddle-wheels turn, and promptly at twelve o clock, midst the cheers of the gathered nmltitude, the waving of hats and handkerchiefs, and the flashing of fun and fancy and sentiment from upturned laughing and liquid faces, the ship creeps from her berth, turns her back upon the land hallowed by all the ties of birth and educa- tion, and with her gun booming the last parting, glides down the stream, winds through the forest of shipping, past islands and grassy slopes beaming with happy homes, and- shoots out into the ocean toward that future of mystery and trembling expectation which assumes shapes so fantastic in the minds of those on board. On our way down the bay, tickets were examined in order to detect stowaways; three aspiring but impecunious unfortunates were taken in custody and shoved into the boat with the pilot when he left the OUT AT SEA. 137 steamer at Sandy Hook. One covered his conceal- ment so completely as to elude the searchers and remained hidden until next day, when, on making his appearance he was set to work in the coal bunkers for his passage. Forgotten adieus and farewell letters were sent back by the pilot, then with Titan arms our ship struck out upon her course through the waves of the Atlantic. Just as we were going out we met the steamer with returning: Californians comina: in. Cheer followed cheer in noisy recognition. With what varied emotions the loud greetings were given! On the one side hopeful enthusiasm, and the inspiration of bright prospects, glad to be off and eager to make the venture; on the other, mingled success and failure, some with ruined health, some with ruined hopes, some brim-full of happiness, while all their broad bosoms swelled at the thought of placing foot once more on native soil — all glad to be back, to be out of the wilderness, the wilderness of land and the wilderness of water. Order rapidly evolved from the confusion ; all settled quietly into place. Some sat apart and smoked and thought of those left behind; others grouped and talked of the time to come. While thus abstracted an insidious and subtle influence appeared to settle upon the voyagers. The air, it seemed to me, was impregnated with it, and I could feel it creeping up from the water through the ship's timbers, through the planks on which I trod, and into my feet and bones. I noticed the ship staggered a little in her gait, and the promenaders likewise staggered, and a peculiar expression of smiling discomfort overspread the yellowish-white faces of some. Land and day- light disappeared, and we were alone with darkness and the ocean. Night shut us in with angry storm-clouds, and closed us round with white-capped waves that curled their raised crests and hissed defiance on the ponder- 138 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. ous wheels that beat them into foam, wheels strivhig with the contending flood, on one side deep in water and on the other vainly grasping at the rushing tide below. The jerkings now and then of the ship betokened a risings sea. Cio;ars and sentiment were abandoned, for here was the beginning of a long unrest. Neither sighings, nor the quickening heart-beat of hope, neither the memories of loved ones left behhid, nor the brilliant aspirations of the future, nor even the solemn thought of thus being brought into the more immediate presence of my maker could prevent the rising within my bosom of sensations foreign to meditation. I tried to appear indifferent ; as the evil increased I attempted even to smile, but it was a ghastly business. As the wind grew boisterous, and the motion of the vessel more palpably uneven, all on board, save the favored few who had neither conscience nor stomach, sousfht retirement. Some thouo-ht to brave down the unbidden rising within by moving briskly about and nibbling a cracker instead of eating supper and going to bed. "You can walk it off," they said, "do not give up to it." I noticed, now and then, that these would suddenly disappear, and when next seen ill their determined perambulations, they looked paler and not altogether happy. Some sat down to table and with affected nonchalance and flourish of knife and fork ,and pronounced orders for food, courageously began to eat; but soon a cloud overspread their faatures, a careworn expression as of some internal trouble, until at last sickness overcoming sensitive- ness, one person after another would rise hastily from the table, clasp one hand on his mouth and the other on his waistcoat, dart for the door, make for the guards, and there unbosom his burdened breast to the fishes. Indeed, my own food was as restless within me as was Poseidon in the bowels of his father Cronos. Few remained on deck that night to witness the SEA-SICKNESS. 139 glories of the setting sun ; the stars were sought be- low, the via lactea streamed over the ship's sides, and the study of Neptune's palace under the sea appeared far more fascinating than the study of Orion and the Pleiades. Sea-sickness is a great leveller. It prostrates pride, purges man of his conceit, makes him humble as a little child ; it is specially conducive to repentance and after repentance to resignation. I know of nothing, after the first fear of death has passed away, that makes one so ready to die. A great wave places its back under the ship and lifts you up, up, into the very clouds ; then it stands from under and you go down, down, with a tickling sensation within, until you stop 3'our breath waiting for the vessel to strike upon the bottom of the sea. Then comes a mingled pitching and rolling, when the innermost loses cohesion, oscil- lates, rotates and upheaves, when the foundations of the great deep are broken up within you, when the strong man bows himself as it were a woman grinding at a mill, and the mourners go about the cabin like apocalyptic angels, wailing as they pour their vials out; and by this unrest and the revels of devils with- in, the imaa;e of God is deo-raded into that of a self- acting hydraulic pump. The mind becomes concerned, the brow overcast; it is like clapping on the head a hope-extinguisher, and squeezing the body at once of every rest and comfort flesh aspires to ; as if the inner lining of the man were rolled up and wrung out down to the very dregs of gall and bitterness. Then the body assumes a doubling posture, the spinal column becomes flaccid and limpy, the victim is filled with a desire to sink to the floor or lie prostrate ; manhood oozes out at the finorers' ends, and Caesar becomes like a sick girl. And all the while those Who escape these miseries regard this agony as ludicrous in the extreme. It is a capital joke to see the strong man brought low, to hear him swear and storm at every thing and every 140 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. body with impotent fury in the intervals between his retching fits; to see the pale despairing women strewed about the cabin, on carpet, chairs and sofas, attended by the stewardess with her gruel bowls, and fizzing powders, and lemons, and toast and tea; to hear all day the groans and moans and gurgling laments in every quarter, to have the night made hideous by the loud alarms of bowel-wrenchinss and belchinos that might awaken the seven sleepers; and then to see the tables deserted and the quandary of those who try to determine which is least difhcult, to keep in bed, to dress, or to eat — all this is very amusing to those happy souls who pet and plume themselves because they are not subject to such horrible sensations, or compelled to assist at such unpleasing scenes. This rocking sensation has something strange in it; it affects different persons so differently. Some it drives well-nigh mad, with sensations akin to those of the novice in gambling who loses his last half-dollar at monte, giving its victim, if not death, resignation to it ; others it sends off into peaceful and long con- tinued sleep bestowing rest and contentment ; others not only are not sea-sick but are made hilarious by it. These latter, as they pass from room to room and see the wan, woe-begotten faces of the vomiters, become extremely satisfied with themselves. " Oh ! no, I am never sick," says Jenkins, "I like it, it agrees with me; I really enjoy it, my appetite is never better than when it is a little breezy ; only one other beside the captain and myself at the table ; roast du"k, tough as ox-hide " — and so he rattled his nauseous boasts to the infinite disgust of prostrate listeners. And as in the sensitive breast there is usually a sense of weakness and shame attending this evil, so it is held by a certain class a cardinal virtue to escape it. Noth- ing so inspires a man with a good opinion of himself and his internal belono-ino-s as to be able to smoke and whistle and carry an undaunted front when the heads of his comrades are horizontally inclined, and their THE BILLOWY SEA. 141 bosoms heaving with the lieaving sea ; or when they are seized witli a sudden interest in the study of ich- thyology, and strain their eyes in untimely peering into the troubled waters. It makes a man g-lad to see his companions sea-sick ; it makes him rejoice in his superiority, to delight in their woe; he laughs that he is better than they. Then the shame of it to the miserables who suffer. Of all who remained cab- ined and berthed for the two days succeeding our de- parture, few could be found who had been sea-sick at all. Some had had a headache, others were fatigued and needed rest ; some were not hungry, and then it was too much trouble to dress. Of all maladies, the one for which its victims are least to blame, they ap- pear the most ashamed of, while colds and fevers brought on by foolish indiscretions are unblushingly acknowledged. Many have made sea- voyages who suffered severely at first, but afterward very little ; although they could still be seasick in rough weather, they knew better how to take care of themselves. There appears to be no universal remedy for this hateful and hated nausea; some find relief in iced champagne, others in brandy, soda-water, tea, gruel, codfish, or fruit. Much depends upon the state of the system, and no two are to be treated exactly alike. In some individual cases, the secret is to find that place and po- sition where one can be most at rest. Few ever suc- ceed in combating the evil, being always forced to yield vanquished. Hence it is on going to sea, the first thing to do is to arrange one's room and effects so that one may be prepared for it ; as a certain nobleman used deliberately to make ready his bed before getting drunk. On this steamer my berth was near the hatchway, and at times the sun poured in upon me the full volume of his rays, which with the motion of the ship, long fasting, and a compound of villainous smells ranker than Falstatf found in Mrs Ford's linen, made me almost wild with fever and suffocation. 142 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. Then, with Gonzalo, would I have ixiven a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground. I would have given my chance of heaven, to say nothing of California, to have been out of it, anywhere but there. This is why middle-aged and elderly men endure the hardships of a voyage to California better than young men and boys, their physique is more fixed, their minds more evenly balanced, and they know better how to make themselves comfortable. My father informs me that on his passage from Panama, many young men died of the Isthmus fever, but not a single person over forty years of age was ill with any disease. The next day the sea was higher, but the morning after it was evidently growing quieter. Following the throes of sickness comes a mental exaltation, giv- ing birth to new thoughts. Never have I felt my brain so active as while lying bracing myself in my berth for days, until my bones ached, and during which time I would be up only long enough to rush to the table for my meals, and rush back again to keep the uneasy food quiet. Thus dull intellects are whetted into keenness by the asperities of the journey, and so made ready to cut their way through the difficulties awaiting them. Moreover, this malady is the best cure in the world for love-sickness, as I have noticed in the pensive youth who had left his inamorata be- hind, and in solitary young women going to Califor- nia to be married. Indeed, upon the homoepathic hypothesis that similia shnilihus curantur, this malady is likewise an antidote for bankruptcy, conjugal infi- delity, or any ill flesh is heir too. The heart and the stomach cannot both exercise the mastery at the same time. Overwhelmed at the beginning of the voyage with the merciless fate that crucified all fond endear- ments, and indifferent to terrestrial affairs ; as the rising wind grows stronger, and the rolling waves mount higher, slowly the dominator lifts passion from the seat of the affections, and places it just below, where it plays havoc with the organs of supply. PASSENGER ROUTENE. 143 I once knew a strong-minded woman wlio avowed she could put down sea-sickness by force of her wilL "It is a mere fancy," she used to explain, "you feel yourself swaying and rocking, and see others sick, and take it for granted you are going to be sick your- self; and so you are. I'll none of it." Afterward the lady went to sea. Whether at her command the wind and the waves were calm, whether the still small voice within was quiet, she did not say ; but never afterward did she so much as intimate that sea-sickness could be brow-beaten. At last the agony is over. The sea calms some- what, and after two days of rolling and dissolution, pale, gaunt forms crawl from tumbled berths and dis- ordered rooms and eye each other; staggering about as they first attempt to use their feet, grasping posts, and railings, finally settling down to languid lounging in high-back easy-chairs, and on benches. Thouglits of feeding arise ; appetite grows apace, and seats at table fill up. With return of appetite comes some degree of amiability. The whitened faces put on a cheerful look as they multiply on deck, the females manifesting their convalescence by renewed interest in their toilets, and in the dresses of their neighbors. Under these auspices if not harmony, at least general good conduct prevails. And now the voyage proper begins. Taking your ticket, which indicates room and berth, to the office of the purser, the civil commandant, though not al- ways a civil man, you receive for it a table check, whose number designates your seat for the voyage. Notables and favorites are placed at the captain's table. Women travelling alone in charge of the cap- tain often fare better than when their husbands are with them. Aside from the captain's table, all is managed upon the most democratic principles. The table is usually ill supplied and ill served, though not always. Table tickets are given to prevent a scramble 144 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. for place, which, before the seats are allotted, some- times rises to a downright fight whenever the bell rings. I never saw the Darwinian theory more aptly illustrated than before these table tickets were p-iven out ; in a voyage to California, the survival of the fit- test was a foregone conclusion. At meal time partic- ularly the animal was let loose ; the strong prevailed, and (obtained a seat at table, while the weak, or such as did not choose to exercise their strength if they had it, waited, and took what was left. As the strong man fed, he lapsed into a state of semi-unconsciousness; his manners were unstudied, and his abandon perfect. He could sweep the dishes of their contents, far as the arm could reach, quicker than a prairie fire sweeps the ground of grass. The movements of a starved dog over the cat's saucer of milk were slow as compared with his movements. He appeared wholly unaware of the presence of women and children who likewise were hungry for food, thouofh I have seen females who could flight for their survival with the best of the men. When his hunger was satisfied, he came to himself, gazed wistfully about, picked his teeth with his pocket-knife, and slowly retired. Steamers for the Californian passenger trade were usually built with three or four decks ; they were at this time all side-wheel and carried small masts. Sails were sometimes spread, though little depended upon them in navigating the ship. The larger ves- sels employed from seventy-five to one hundred men, officers, seamen, and servants. Of all the employes the firemen were the greatest sufferers ; working be- fore a hot furnace down in the hold, they were fre- quently so overcome of heat that they had to be packed in ice to cool them off. On the upper deck, above the ship's hull, was a double row of state-rooms, with ample space between them and the guards for sittinof and walkingf, and for the managfement of the ship. On this dock, forward, were also the pilot- CONSTRUCTION OF SHIP. 145 house, and the rooms of the captain and first officers. State-rooms had usuall}^ three narrow berths, though some had but two, while others had six. The pleas- antest rooms were those on the upper deck, though the rooms below were larger, and less exposed in stormy weather. Over this deck, fore and aft, awn- ings were spread in warm weather, under which pas- sengers spent most of their time. Below the main deck was the diningr saloon, used also for flirtincr and cards when the tables were not set, and in which di- vine service was held on Sunday. On either side of this saloon was a row of state-rooms. The purser's office was usually on this deck, midships, as also were ,, the second and third officers' rooms, the engineer's 'j room, the barber-shop, bar, butcher's shop, and cook's 1 galley. Below this deck, aft, the port-holes often ; below the surface of the water, slept the second-class passengers, and on the same floor, forward, the third class, or steerage. Passengers were divided into three classes: first cabin, who enjoyed state-rooms and sep- arate tables, second cabin, whose deck below was badly ventilated, and the floor covered with standing berths, or open sleeping-shelves, having narrow passages be tween them, and the steerage passengers forward, above and below. The second-cabin passengers had free access to all parts of the ship, the same as those of the first cabin ; they took their meals in the saloon of the first cabin, eating before or after the first-cabin passengers. The steerage passengers were confined to the several decks of the forward part of the ship. The steamers all carried a surgeon or a doctor, but he was usually neither competent nor attentive. Notice was posted forbidding the wearing of deadly weapons, and the discharge of fire-arms ; nor was any to appear at table without his coat. Notice of lati- tude and longitude and distance run was given each day. A good run was two hundred and fifty miles in twenty-four hours. Chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks, sheep, swine, and Cal. Int. Poc. 10 146 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. cattle were carried on board, and butchered as re- quired. Meals were kept going in the saloon nearly ail the time, as when the ship was crowded three or four tables were set for each meal, so that breakfast crowded on luncheon, and luncheon on dinner. On this trip there were nine tables in all, but I have fre- quently seen the tables all laid twelve times each day. The steerage passengers were treated more like beasts than human beings ; to the shipowners they were but so much freight, to be carried at so much a head. Their sufferings, and whether they lived or died, were matters of their own. They were bedded like swine, and fed like swine. Instead of a trough, a broad, board shelf was suspended from the ceiling, which served as a table, greasy and clothless, furnished with tin plates and cups, and pewter spoons, and on which were placed huge pans or kettles of food, stews, beans, and the like. Droves, one after another, were let in through a gate, and after they had fed a while they were driven out by their sooty overseers. Out of the regions of ice and snow, out of boister- ous waves and cold stinging air, we pass Cape Hat- teras, and dropping down the Florida coast and across the gulf stream, sail into an unruffled sea, into the soft, southern, aromatic air, down into the seaweeds, and through the haunts of nautilus, and flying fish, which in their attempts to scale the ship often drop upon the deck; down among the ever-green isles where were enacted the initial tra2;edies of Ameri- can race-extermination. Spring succeeds winter and summer spring. The polestar pales behind us. The air first softens, then grows languid, and finally pul- sates with heat. Flannels and heavy clothing are laid aside ; clean calico dresses and summer bonnets take the place of woolen gowns and hoods, and the experi- enced male travellers sport their white pantaloons, linen coats, and straw hats. Out under a burning sun, and into hot sea-breezes, and from shivering in DOW^ INTO THE TROPICS. 147 furs and overcoats we swelter in garments of thinnest texture. Sea-sick sleepers crawl from their cabins and stretch themselves about the deck. Northern energy with northern frosts are melted out of the man ; mind and muscle relax their tension ; there is a general letting down of the system, lassitude and ennui steal over the senses ; perspiration oozes from every pore and stands in great beads upon the sur- face, or flows off" in rivulets. Clothes are saturated, and respiration lengthens and becomes more difficult. Even reading and card-playing are abandoned as re- quiring too much exertion. Scandal-making sets in ; women of easy virtue grow bold, and pimpish men throw off" reserve and flaunt the true colors of their character. In rough weather passengers are very quiet ; it is useless to try to out-rant the ocean, and for this un- doubtedly the ship's officers are thankful, often pre- ferring the unevenness of the sea to the ruffled temp- ers of the hundreds on board. But when the brist- ling waves subside, the voice of the chronic grumbler is heard abusing ship, captain, and all his surround- ing's. His room is small, there are too few hairs in the mattress, and too many cockroaches between the mildewed sheets; some restless fellow has the upper berth, or some squalling children the under. At table, with prominent lower jaw, and open monkey mouth, and sharp teeth, and low forehead with lateral scowl, he keeps up an incessant growling, except during the time required to sweep the food from the table into his capacious mouth. The bread is sour, the butter rank, the fowl and venison insipid, the beef tough, and so on. When those of this category have cursed themselves comfortable, they take to cracking jokes, singing, and gaming. Here a raw countryman, now become an ambitious searcher for knowledge, earnestly applies himself to the improvement of his little talent by studying certain phenomena which attract his attention about 148 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. the ship. Rushing in where angels fear to tread, into the august presence of omnipotence itself, he boldly addresses the Thunderer, the captain of the craft, who if he happens to be occupied gives in return a deep-toned curse and a shove which sends the appli- cant headlong- elsewhere for information. Nothing;' daunted, but a little more wary in the future, before he leaves the ship he knows the difference between bow and stern, and lee and weatherside, learns to count time by the bells, and to play seven-up for the drinks. I noticed, after we were fairly out at sea, a certain habitual sarcastic expression on the face of many, particularly those of the ruder sort, as if the wearer wished to cover his sense of inferiority. Such are the men, who, seasoned by experience, and having in reality gained a better opinion of themselves, but making less show of it, on their return from California fall victims to professional pickpockets, who regularly plied their trade between New York and Aspinwall, endeavoring to win the confidence of returning Cali- fornians so as to fleece them on groins; ashore. Some there were on this trip out who had been to California before, men of slow demeanor, with slouched hat and slouched gait, of free and easy speech, and comfortable carriage, and self-satisfied countenance, red-shirted, perhaps, as they were proud of the distinction, and these were looked up to as superior beings by all raw recruits. Some sat the livelong day gazing list- lessly on the water, or staring stupidly at their fel- lows ; others restlessly wandered about with a sharp anxious inquiring look; some set themselves up as sailors and talked knowingly of ships, others discussed politics, religion, and monetary affairs, and many had much to say of the land and people to which they were going. Among them you might readily point out the chronic talker, the chronic listener, and the chronic laugher, which latter with his asinine guffaw at every silly repartee was the most disgusting of all. STEAMSHIP LIFE. 149 Yet these men were all of them brim full of fire, even those made most stupid by sea and tropical air. You might see it in their quick jerky movements when molested ; in the firm step, the flashing eye, the com- pressed lip. Each felt himself to be in the path of duty, felt that he was doing the fashionable thing, the right thing. They were sacrificially ordained, and were elevated by the call ; they had given up all for gold, and their thoughts and dreams and even their breath of life, were golden. Steamship life is not so dull as it is disgusting ; not so much monotony as morbidity. On board clipper ships, which carry few passengers, there is much more dullness, but there is less social gangrene, less morose- ness and chronic distemper. There is a difference between sameness and dullness. Every day of a sea- voyage must be necessarily much the same, every day may be even disagreeable, but no day need be necessarily dull, and no person need necessarily be overcome of ennui. There is much to observe, much to learn. Aside from books, every man has a biogra- phy worthy the knowledge of every other man, could its essence be extracted. Some study Spanish, some read, some play euchre, whist, or solitaire, chess or back-gannnon, some write letters or keep a journal, and not a few flirt. A sea voyage is love's opportunity ; she whose temper can pass triumphantly the oceanic ordeal is worthy Amadis of Gaul. Many a play at love has ended with the voyage in marriage. Some of those who left the fair one behind felt their love to some extent evaporate with sea air and sea-sickness; others still studied the chronometer for the precise moment which should bring their angel to the ap- pointed star-gazing. Here and there a newly married couple may be seen lost in each other, her head upon his shoulder, his arm around her waist, indifferent to remark and oblivious to derisive smiles ; but for one such pair you may see a dozen who no less publicly display 150 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORlSriA. their hate, and manifest no more dehcacy in disclosing their mutual infelicities. Home-sickness, oftener felt than spoken, sometimes overtakes unfledged wanderers. On this voyage, just as we were passing the Bahama islands, one man was so overcome that he could not repress his tears as he begged the captain to put him on board the first returning ship. " I acted hastily," he cried, " I did wrono; in leaving; wife and children. But I will make amends ; let me return and work for them till I die." In time, this man, who was a poor me- chanic, became reconciled ; but I could not help think- ing how many hearts had throbbed well-nigh to bursting with secret regrets. The fifth day out was Sunday, when the Episcopal service was read by the purser. Sabbath is never Sabbath again after spendnig one on a California steamer. The sacred charm is broken, the hallowed influence of the day forever gone, placed among the things that were, only to be called up in the memory, and pondered over, and wondered at. Here Sunday is much like other days ; there is little to remind one of the deep celestial quiet of the home Sabbath. There was a little less card-playing and novel read- ing ; now and then a bible or a prayer-book might be seen, and sacred hymns supplied the place of negro melodies. But home pictures would appear painted on the imagination deeper and stronger than on other days. Evening songs fell on hearts tuned to the old familiar strains, sending tears to the eyes of many a listener. Many there were in body rocked on the Atlantic that in spirit were back by the old fireside. The loud laugh fell on the ear, but the heart heard only the chiming of the village bells; the merry jest went round, but ere it fell it turned to a precept pro- nounced by the familiar voice from the old church pulpit ; the rippling of water was but the murmurs of mother and brother talking of the absent one. Con- science draws fine lines sometimes ; there was one man who would not take a hand at cards because it was HABANA. 151 Sunday, but lie did not mind risking a dollar on the game. Came in sight late that night, or, rather early the next morning, the fair island of Cuba. I dressed my- self and went out. It was a magnificent moonlight night and the sea was smooth as glass. There was a soft tropical haze in the atmosphere, and as, on our approach, the mountains of the interior assumed form, and the green hills, and white beach, and coral reefs — almost buried in foliage— -the waving palms of the hill-tops and the orange groves nestling in quiet val- leys were more plainly distinguished, the view pre- sented was ravishing in the extreme. Arrived off Habana an hour before daylight, we came to a stop and lay too under the guns of the More Castle, where we were obliged to wait until sunrise before entering the harbor, such being the rule. Then, just as the sun lifted its warm tints above the horizon, scattering the sky-painted imagery that forecast the dawn, we turned round the dark bluff, under the frowning battle- ments of the fortress, gun answering gun in courteous salute, while far over the sea swept the morning music from the fort, like blasts of the archangel sounding the opening of a new world. As we slowly steamed up the channel, on the right of which lay the city, with its terraced houses of many colors, blue, yellow, and red, its quaint cathedral piles and glittering spires, our course was arrested by pompous health and cus- toms officers, who, after performing their duties to their dignified satisfaction, allowed us to proceed. We soon came to anchor before the city, and the passengers were permitted to land. Pygmalion's statue was no more lost in won- derment than was I. To my inexperienced gaze all was as marvelous as if I had been lifted from another world and put down upon this spot. There was the voluptuous morning sun rolling in an aerial sea of crimson flanked by silver-burnished clouds ; the wanton air playing with the feathered palms, and breathing .152 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. the perfumed incense of orange groves; and here a wonderful city ghttering beside a glassy sea, a city famous for its cigars, its fountains, its magnificent opera house and mosaic mirrored counting house, its narrow streets and broad shaded carriage-way and Isabel Segunde promenade, its grand plaza, cafes and brilliant gas lights, its moonlight music, and gay military officers, and dark-eyed senoritas, and its two- wheeled volantes — the hansom cab of London and the gondola of Venice — drawn by a small, scrawny horse, harnessed to the ends of two long poles ten feet and over from the vehicle. The tail of the ani- mal is braided so as to leave it at the mercy of tor- menting flies, and besides drawing the gig with its freight of fat Cubans or fair senoritas, the poor beast must carry a driver with large jingling spurs and heavy club. If more than one beast is attached to a volante, the horses are usually driven tandem. To the the bishop's garden, the popular drive, most of our passengers went for the day — past villas and chateaus buried in blooming foliage, through avenues bordered by hedges of roses, and shaded by orange-trees bending beneath their golden fruit. At night we listened to the band playing in the plaza, and watched the half-veiled senoritas, and sombre looking men and smoking women and naked boys, moving noisily about beneath the shrubbery and under the glowing moon which, mirrored on the glassy water of the harbor, made it shine, like a sea of silver, Siempre fiel isla de Cuba; la'loya mas brilliante en la carona d' Espana — heaven be with thee, as thou in my youthful fancy appeared almost like heaven. The passengers, baggage, mails, and freight of the George Law were here transferred to the steamer Georgia, and day and evening were consumed in the operation. At length, worn out by unaccustomed fatigue, tired even of a tropical paradise, we shoul- dered a quantity of cigars which we had purchased KINGSTON. 153 and went on board — settling the export duties, under direction of the seller, by giving a half dollar to the official stationed on board, who pocketed it amidst vehemently gesticulated protestations, which I took to be a sort of mock battle between conscience and duty; or it may be he deemed the bribe insufficient to satisfy virtue so august. Leaving him to reconcile matters as best he might I hurried to bed, and when I awoke in the morning the lovely isle had vanished like a dream, and we were far on our way toward Jamaica, that is to say, the Land of Wood and Water. Kingston, where we touched for coals, should be the black man's paradise. A negro pilot pretended to guide our vessel into the harbor, a negro port- master pompously manipulated the mails, black shop- keepers importuned passers by, black hackmen clamored for a fare, black prostitutes smiled for cus- tomers, black fruit-venders and parrot-sellers crow^led the avenues leading from the wharf, dashing black dandies flourished their white-headed canes, squads of olack soldiers swelled in the Britisher's red coat, the regimental band which played in the park was com- posed of some fifty fine performers — black ; black women, about fifty in number, some of them young girls, did the coaling, carrying on their heads a tub or half barrel holding sixty pounds of coals, marching up and down the gang-plank with ease and alacrity, accompanying their apparently laborious duty with loud laughter, song, and dancing, while the men sat by and smoked and smiled approval. Swarms of polished ebony bipeds, male and female, perambulated the streets, smoking their long cigars, and familiarly cracking their rude jokes with the passengers. Race distinction, if there be any but such as is merely phy- sical, seems to be here reversed, the Avhite man, as a class, occupying about the position of the black man in other parts. Literally, a white man here is as 154 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. good as a black one so long as he behaves himself. Colored freeholders received the elective franchise as early as 1830; after 1838 they could sit in the local legislature, by which qualification 1853 saw one black man in the council and fifteen in the assembly. Judg- ing from the muscle on arm and leg, and the loads the women carry on their heads, this West India climate asfrees with the African. Putting to sea, in three days thereafter we an- chored before the ruins of the old fort of San Lo- renzo commanding the entrance to Chagres river. CHAPTER VII. THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA —ISTHMUS OF PANAJSli. What deem'd they of the future or the past ? The present, like a tyrant, held them fast. — Byron. The isthmus of Panama, or, as it was anciently called, Darien, must ever command the interest of the civilized world. Aside from the charm which history throws over this region, as the bar which baffled the last attempt of the great admiral to find a passage to India, as the point where were planted the first perma- nent Spanish settlements on the North American conti- nent, as the window of the bi-continental Cordilleras which, opened by the hand of Vasco Nunez de Balboa, let in from the great South Sea a flood of light illumi- nating well nigh to blindness all Europe, as the initial point to many a marauding expedition, as the scene of divers piratical attacks, and local revolutions, — I say aside from historic associations, this narrow strip of earth must ever be regarded with attention by all the nations of the world, presenting, as it does, the smallest impediment to inter-oceanic communication and an uninterrupted pathway from Europe to Asia, sailino; to the westward. Said Walter Raleiirh to Elizabeth, "Seize the isthmus of Darien, and you will wrest the keys of the world from Spain." Here the continent was first spanned by iron, and here is being duo- the first inter-oceanic canal. At the beo^inninty of the new traffic arisino- from the discovery of gold in California, the natives of the Isthmus were civil, inoflensive, and obliging. This (155) 156 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. state of things was quickly changed, however. It was a new experience for them, this contact with Anglo-Americans of the ruder sort, strong, shrewd, and overbearing, too often impudent and hi suiting, too many of them unprincipled, with a sprinkling of unmitigated rascality. The mild and ignorant tropi- cal man shrank from them at first, then grew sullen and suspicious, and finally fell to cheating in return, though never able in this last accomplishment to equal his bright exemplar. Two pilgrims landing at Chagres from the steam- ship Isthmus, in January 1849, the Quaker City then lying in the harbor, hired bongos for themselves and baggage, proceeded up the river to the head of navi- gation, then transferred their belongings to the backs of mules, riding one between them, alternately, and so proceeded to Panamd. This was then the usual way. The steamer California was there, having just come round Cape Horn, and having on board some sixty passengers from Valparaiso. There was quite a panic among the travellers, sev- eral thousands of whom were collected there, waiting for an opportunity to proceed to San Francisco by any conveyance whatever. There was much imprudence among them. The excessive use of intoxicating liquors, eating tropical fruits to which they were unaccustomed, and heavy rainfalls, contributed to develop sickness among them. It was diflficult to obtain accommoda- tions; people were crowded, and many died from cholera and fever. Many of the persons on the Isth- mus at the time had tickets only to that point, and tickets from there to San Francisco, for deck passage, were sold as high as six hundred dollars. The steam- ers could not furnish acconnxiodations for so many persons. The steamship compan}^ allowed a certain number of tickets to be drawn, but there was much trickery in this. In order that there might be fair play, some of the outsiders were called in ; but gam- blers and other improper persons having been selected. OtT THE ISTHMUS, 157 their friends were the favored ones. Durmor all this time the cholera was playing havoc among the emi- grants as well as among the residents of Panamd. It is a fact that hundreds of the former were victims of that scourge, and of malignant fevers, and that nearly the whole black population of the Isthmus was also swept away by the epidemic, which lasted until 1851. In the course of time, ample facilities for the transpor- tation of passengers from the Isthmus were provided ; but the above data, and those given further on, con- vey an idea of what the first seekers after California gold by way of the Isthmus had to undergo, until the railway, commenced in 1850, was completed, in Janu- ary 1855= Seven miles of that great undertaking — great con- sidering the time and the place — the Panama railway, was accomplished when, on the first of March, 1852, we dropped anchor off Chagres; and to afford the company due encouragement, those seven miles must be travelled over, and contribution levied for the same, at the rate of nearly one dollar a mile, on every pas- senger crossing the Isthmus thereafter. So orders were given to weigh anchor, and proceed thence two or three leagues easterly to Colon, or Navy bay, then called Aspinwall, the name and glory of the first ad- miral beino; thrust aside for those of a New York money magnate. However, the old name of Colon was a few years after restored. There we disembarked, and rode ever the seven miles of completed work, pay- ing for the same quite liberally, when we were per- mitted to engage boats and ascend the Chagres river, which we could as easily and as cheaply have done before as afterward. Crossing the Isthmus in early times, for an untrav- elled, provincial people, was a feat altogether indi- vidual and unique ; a feat very different from a three or four hours' ride in comfortable rail-cars, through 158 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. ever clianging scenery which affords the observer con- stant deUght, as the journey is now made. Chao;res at this time was a town of about seven hundred native inhabitants, dwelling in some fifty windowless, bamboo huts, with thatched, palm-leaf roofs, and having open entrances, and the bare ground for a floor. The town was surrounded by heaps of filthy offal, and greasy, stagnant pools bordered with blue mud. It is situated on a small but exceedingly picturesque and almost land-locked bay, well nigh buried by the foliage that skirts its banks and rolls off in billowy emerald toward the hills beyond. Be- tween the shore and mountains stretch away for miles in every direction broad, open savannahs, cut into farms, covered with chaparral, and stocked with cattle. Where the river and ocean meet rises a bold bluff, crowned by the castle of San Lorenzo, whose ruined fortress and battlements, gnawed to a skeleton by the teeth of time, gaze mournfully out upon the sea which lashes its waves against its steep foundations, as if determined to uproot in all these inhospitable parts the last vestige of the olden time. Fallen to the bottom of the cliff were parapet and guns ; screaming sea-birds occupied the crumbling, moss-covered watch- tower ; while within the dismounted cannon, bearing, with the royal arms of Spain, the date of 1745, were slowly changing into rust. Remnants of the old paved road which ascends the hill were there, and the draw- bridge over the moat — once wide and deep, but now rank with vegetation — leading to the main gateway ; likewise the drawbridge to the citadel on the verge of the cliff, whence a charming view of sea and land may be had. At Chagres, passengers were accustomed to stay no longer than sufficed to engage boats and start on their journey. This region is specially noted for the insalubrity of its climate. Aspinwall, or Navy bay, where the first blow upon the railway was struck, occupies a small swampy mud- reef called Manzanilla island, fringed with mangrove COLON. 159 trees, and originally covered with interlacing vines and thorny shrubs, and inhabited only by reptiles, beasts and poisonous insects. It has been stated that Columbus entered Navy bay, and called the place after himself, Colon. This seems to me hardly probable. In the first place, none of the early voyagers make any mention of such an event ; and in the next place the great admiral could have found many spots more interesting and import- ant than this to bear his name. Whether Rodrigo de Bastidas or Columbus touched at Chagres, their records do not state. The first mention history makes of that famous place, it will be remembered, is in the adventures of Diego de Nicuesa along these shores in 1508. A relative of this cavalier, Cueto by name, having command of another ship than that in which Nicuesa sailed, and becoming separated from his com- mander in a storm, was forced, while seeking him, to harbor his worm-eaten ship at the mouth of the river Chagres, so called by the natives, but to which, from the multitudes of allio-ators that swarmed in its little bay, he gave the name of Lagartos. Probably there was not in all the world where man dwells a more loathsome spot than this town of Aspinwall, with its hybrid population and streets of intersecting stagnant pools. A bed of slime and decaying vegetation reeking pestilence, alive with crawling reptiles, given over of nature to the vilest of her creations, man for money makes a place of to live in, or rather to die in, for premature death is plainly written on the face of every European inhab- itant. Travel the world over and in every place you may find something better than is found in any other place. Searching for the specialty in which Aspin- wall excelled, we found it in her carrion birds, which cannot be anywhere surpassed in size or smell. Man- zanilla island may boast the finest vultures on the planet. OriginaRy a swamp, the foundations of the buildings were below the level of the ocean, and dry 160 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. land was made by filling in as occasion required. The result in this soft soil of filth and vegetable putridity may be hnagined. The very ground on which one trod was pregnant with disease, and death was dis- tilled in every breath of air. The rain-fall at Aspin- wall is very heavy. During the rainy season, which is from May to January, the windows of heaven are opened, and in October and November there is a quick succession of deluges. Glued furniture falls in pieces ; leather moulds, and iron oxidizes in twenty- four hours. Quite a contrast between the old and the new ! In making the transit by rail, the day before reaching Aspinwall every one descended into the hold of the steamer, either in person or by proxy, selected his baggage, had it weighed and checked, and paid ten cents a pound for all over fifty pounds if a holder of a steerage ticket, and all over one hundred pounds if a holder of a cabin ticket. BaCTcrao-e was then trans- ferred to the steamer on the other side without fur- ther trouble to the owner. No sooner was the plank out than the closely penned passengers, with a rush, squeezed and stampeded — the American style of dis- embarking — hastened ashore, scattered themselves among the hotels, shops, and fruit venders, and were soon lost in present gratification of appetite, and in laying in a store of comforts and disease for the future. The pleasure of placing foot on shore after a long voyage, even though it be the soft spongy shore of Aspinwall, is exquisite. To a cramped sea-rolled landsman any spot of earth looks lovely, especially when viewed from the sea. To tread on solid ground, and feel mother earth beneath your feet again, seems like a return from supernatural regions. Thus to land and thus to cross the Isthmus is a pleasant change from the tiresome life on board the steamers. Railway passengers wish the ride was longer, wish they could so ride all the way to San Francisco. Seated by an open window, the face fanned by the RACE PANDEMONIUM. 161 motion of the train, and armed with a pitcher or pail of iced water, the ride is indeed charming. But at the time of which I write crossing the Isthmus was a very different affair, as I shall show. Placed ashore at Aspinwall by the ship's boats the passengers by the Georgia were conveyed on open platform cars to Gatun, seven miles distant, situated on a small stream of the same name, near its conflu- ence with the Chagres river. There an uproarious scene presented itself The occasion was the hiring of bongos or canoes in which to ascend the river. The boating was done by negroes and natives ; the patrones, skippers, or owners of the boats were mostly Creoles, the least tinge of whiteness in their blood being suffi- cient to warrant them in asserting supremacy. The gold-seekers were here first thrown upon their own resources ; here the real battle began. On shipboard they were only so much steamship pabulum ; the goddess of liberty had shrunk to the dimensions of a, captain of a water craft. Once more on shore, and American manhood mio;ht aoain assert itself Of course attempts w^ould be made at cheating, and such attempts should be resisted to the death. Nothhig quicker marks the narrow-minded and inexperienced traveller than a morbid fear of being overreached. Shall the American eao-le be brow-beaten bv the turkey -buzzards of a nonderscrij^t No-land ? Hence _any attempt at fancied imposition was blustered down, and knives and pistols freely used, if necessary, to en- force fair dealiiio;. Seldom did a steamer load of passengers get started up the river without much wrangling. Boat-owners were not slow to take advantao-e of their necessities, and charge exorbitant fares ; or having made a con- tract they flew from it and demanded more. Rascal- ity was rampant ; and so keen were the adventurers to scent a swindle that they sometimes found a mare's nest. Many a pilgrim here first shed the crust of conventionality ; and many another on glancing into Cal. Int. Poc. H 162 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. the kaleidoscope of unsanctified human nature and Hberated passion turned back discomfited, and sought his home by the steamer that brought him. If the infernal regions were to be bombarded for this gold, they would pause and consider the matter. Then there were yet those fastened by fate in this magnifi- cent cesspool of tropical putrescence who could get neither way; who having taken their chances of reaching California had lost. Happy indeed would they have been if they could have gone forward in any direction. And there were those, saffron- visaged skeletons, stretched side by side on cots, in the heated rooms of hotels, on whom death had set its seal, with no loved one near to ease the achino; limb or wet the parched tongue. Passengers in India rubber and oilcloth suits, singly and in amalgamated groups of quondam friendships, armed with pistols, guns, knives, umbrellas, and life- preservers, mild-mannered as belted brigands, were on the qui vive lest assassination should add their car- casses to the many significant mounds in the vicinity. Equipped with drinking-cups, pots, kettles, forks, spoons, and air-beds, with stores of meat, bread, brandy, and pills, all were rushing about bargaining, swearing, and whooping, impatient to be off. Bam- boo-faced patrones ranting bad Spanish, in broad- bottomed pantaloons, colored muslin shirts, and broad- brimmed jipijapa hats, with huge cigars in their sensual mouths, having fleets or boats at their command, formed the central figure of excited groups. Canoes from fifteen to twenty-five feet in length, dug from a single log of bay or mahogany, and capable of carrying from four to ten persons with their luggage, could be engaged to Gorgona for from thirty to fifty dollars and a bottle of brandy for the boatmen. The patron usually accompanied his fleet, steering one of the boats. Our boat is engaged — it has an awning to protect ON THE THE CHAGRES RTVElt. 163 US from alternate sun and rain — our baggage stowed, and we have settled into as comfortable positions r.s our cargo will permit. One glance at the j angling- crowd upon the bank, and we are off. After all there is something touching in the scene. The steamer we had an idea would bring character to the surface ; but now we find we knew little of our neio-hbors before they stepped ashore, and assumed their respective parts for the Isthmus extravaganza. The burly man and loud talker, that we imagine mig-ht brave boatmen or boa constrictors, now puffs and sweats about the outer edge of a knob of determined actors, among whom the little quiet boyish-looking fellow, with short, slight frame, small hand, and delicate features, assumes au- thority as by appointment. In such an emergency mind and resolute daring, of their own inherent vir- tue, form a nucleus round which grosser substance gravitates. Then what a history they have, every one of them. In their outre guise, with all their inor- dinate desires and liberated propensities, their fretful fault-findings, stupid misunderstandings, and morbid restlessness, there is an air of stormy grandeur about them. They are heroes and martyrs, in their way. Have they not left quiet peace for troubled wander- ings, abandoned loving; hearts for loneliness ? Have they not for sweet charity's sake blinded their eyes to the rosy smiles of children, stopped their ears to the passionate sobs of wife and mother and sister, steeled their affections against home and its sanctifying mem- ories, and cast themselves adrift, aye, plunged their souls into a gehenna of hi quietude and stinging battle? Two or four or six shining, black, thick-limbed and muscular negroes, uniting with the African wooly hair, and protruding lips, a Moorish aquiline nose, or as many lighter colored, and lighter limbed natives, propelled the boats up the stream by means of poles, at an average speed of a mile an hour. Taking their stand upon the broadened edges of the canoe on either 164 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. side, one end of their pole upon the bottom of the river, and the other placed against their shoulder, smoking with perspiration, their deep chests sending forth volumes of vapor into the vapory air, their swollen sinews strained to their utmost tension, and keeping time to a sort of grunting song, they step steadily along from stem to stern, thus sending the boat rapidly over the water, except where the cur- rent is strong. The middle of the channel, where the water is deep and the current rapid, is avoided as much as possible; yet with every precaution the men frequently miss their purchase and the boat falls back in a few minutes as great a distance as it can re- cover in an hour. Evsry now and then, ceasing their work, the swarthy boatmen disrobe with the most im- perturbable sang froid, and wholly insensible to the presence of horror-stricken females, and with perspira- tion streaming down their naked sinewy limbs, cry " bano 1" and running the bow of the boat into the bank, they fasten it there with the poles and plunge into the stream. Or if overtaken by rain, which here falls with scarcely the slightest warning, they strip them- selves to the last rag of whatever they happen to have on, and rolling up their clothes put them in a dry place until the rain is over. In places poles and paddles are wholly ineffectual, and the boatmen are obliged to take to the bank, and tow the boat after them with a rope, or, wading in the water, bear it by main force up the rapids. One boat after another is pushed along amid sage re- marks, coarse jests and yells, and the firing of pistols. There is a humorous side to every scene; and this was the side usually uppermost in early Californian times, however trying the ordeal, or incongruous the' grouping, or dismal the moral shades. To these ad- venturers so lately liberated from the nauseating con- finement of a rolling overcrowded steamer, — not- withstanding the heat and moisture which hung in the air, and folded them about like a wet blanket — REDUNDANT VEGETATION. ~ 165 such things as ground on which to plant their feet, thougli none of the firmest, activity of muscle and mind, midst scenes so new and wonderful to them, together with liberal potations from the reputed fever- preventing bottle, had a most exhilarating effect upon their spirits; though most of them were quite ready again to seek refuge in a ship before they found one on the other side. Surpassingly beautiful is the foliage along the banks of this Circean stream. Kolling up from either side are mountains of impervious forest, gigantic, rank, and wild. Every shade of green, sombre and bright, min- gles with rose-red, purple, white, and yellow, orange, blue, and pink in endless varying kaleidoscope. Solemn palms, thick-leaved mangoes, bold majestic teaks, and iDounteous bananas are linked by crimson-blossomed parasites, which, twining, interlacing, creeping, and pendant, mat and unite all brotherhoods in close em- brace, and over-reaching the glistening banks meet their image in the glassy waters. Bending acacias dig their sinewy roots into the soft earth to pre- vent falling, and weave their branches into thick screens ; bread-fruit hangs in huge clusters overhead, and plantain pine-apple and orange, mango and lime, papaw alligator-pear and sugar-cane, yield profusely their spontaneous favors. It is no trifling matter to be a tree in the tropics. If erect and strong it is made a plant-patriarch, whether it will or not, and must support a dense mass of orchids, purple convol- vuli, and creeping plants of almost every genus and species, which if spread upon the ground would form a thick carpet covering a space five times the area of the tree's shadow at noon-day ; and when at last the forest behemoth is smothered to death, and dragged down by these relentless parasites, its sapless trunk is speedily buried in broad leaves and tender vines and bunches of spongy moss, and its tomb decorated with flaming flowers and delicate microscopic blossoms. Underneath dark vistas of shadowy colonnade are 166 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. tall Q^rasses and tano-lecl shrubbery throua;h which wild beasts with difficulty force their way. What in our colder climes are rare exotics, here riot in the open air, bursting with exuberance. Innumerable flowers of every hue gild the landscape ; the tiny blos- soms of the north spread out in flaming proportions, or assume shapes in which they almost lose their iden- tity, while innumerable species unknown to the north- ern naturalist abound in rank profusion. Chief among these, and one of the most remarkable that blooms in any clime, is the Flor del Espiritu santo, the flower of the holy ghost. Lifting its graceful form from marshy pools and decayed logs to a height sometimes of six or seven feet, it throws out broad lanceolate leaves by pairs from jointed leaf-stalks, while on a leafless flower-stalk springing from the bulb are sometimes ten or fifteen tulip-shaped blossoms of alabaster white- ness, and powerful magnolia perfume, enfolding with- in their tiny cups the prone image of a dove, formed in such consummate grace and symmetry as no art could approach. And with this emblem of innocence and celestrial purity rising from a sensual paradise; with its gentle head bent meekly forward, its exquis- itely shaped pinions hanging listlessly by its sides, its tiny bill, tipped with delicate carmine, almost resting on its snow-white breast, in form and feature the very incarnation of ethereal innocence — shall we blame the early priests for pointing the poor natives to this flower, and telling them God is here ? Palm trees of various descriptions line the banks, and gorgeous water lilies dip their fragrant heads as the boat passes over them. Every shower of rain is like the sprinkling of perfume on the vegetation. Birds of richly painted plumage and shrill song illum- inate the forest; the dark, scarlet-breasted toucan, which tosses its food from its long serrated beak into the air and catches it in its throat, and in drinking, as the padres say, makes the sign of the cross, whence they call it Dios te de, (May God give thee) ; scream- ANIMATED NATURE. 167 ing parrots, parroquets and flamingoes with their harsh discordant voices, and black and yellow turpiales, wild turkeys, peacocks, and herons, and multitudes of others, gorgeously feathered and sweet of song, glitter amidst the shadowy green. Chattering monkeys leap from tree to tree and swing upon the pendent vines ; mammoth blue butterflies, brilliant as the rainbow, dance in the sun and rise to match the azure of heaven on wings a hand broad ; and humming birds, beautiful as the butterflies, buzz and poise and dart from flower to flower. Myriads of insects with burnished coats of mail sparkle in the air and people the plants, while all through the day the shrill whistle of the chicharra — a kind of green grasshopper — is heard, which begin- ning in a low gurgle, rises into a clear blast like the whistle of a steam engine, and which may be distin- guished a mile distant. Early Spanish writers throw up their hands in as- tonishment over the wonders of this land; melons, cucumbers, and lettuce, say they, ripen in twenty da3's after they are sown. Fruits and edible roots abound in great profusion. The pineapple was considered the most delicious of all tropical productions. Wild beasts and venomous reptiles and birds of brilliant plumage fill the forests. A species of lion, smaller than those of Africa was found there, as well as fierce leopards and ravenous tigers which easily tear a man in pieces ; deer, foxes, hares, rabbits, multitudes of apes and monkeys, alligators, venomous bats, vipers, snakes, scorpions, pheasants, peacocks, parrots, and birds decked in a thousand shades of gay livery, and pour- ing forth sweet melody, all preying one upon another, each fulfilling its mission, to occupy and enjoy the bounteous gifts of nature so lavishly placed at their disposal. It is a pity so fair a scene should be so foul; that such dark death-dealing plague-spots should be clotted in treacherous beauty ; that quick and ardent nature should flood such loveliness with vapors of destruction, 168 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. should breathe into it a breatli of malignant perfume, and give it over to slimy reptiles and ravenous beasts ; to panthers, tigers, leopards and cougars, to long lash- like snakes, and lazy alligators, and poisonous ants, and black stinking cormorants. The river here is a clear, but somewhat shallow stream, about fifty yards wide ; its banks at first low and marshy rise into hills as you ascend, and roll off in distant mountains. Now it is full of bongos and canoes coming and going, racing, knocking against each other; and at every turning of the crooked stream the boatmen's cries and shouts of passengers are heard cheering as they pass. So winding is this river in its course that more than fifty miles are traversed in order to reach a point thirty miles distant. On they go, the prospective diggers, panting after a sight of the yellow dross as harts pant for water. To them it was nothing but the nakedness of God's creation, all this wild, weird beauty about them, the glorious quivering and play of light and shadow, where the black reflects the cliffs of eternal foliage rising sheer from its very edge. As we ascend, though still tropic, the river scenery becomes more subdued, and the country in places begins to look as if cultivation was being attempted. At Dos Hermanos we stopped a little before night for our supper. Before one of the principal eating- houses we found a table spread in the open air, covered with a clean cloth, and attended by a mahogany- colored woman, bare to the waist, with a white loose flowered cotton skirt trimmed with lace, a broad- brimmed Panama hat, and a golden necklace adorned with coins. On her unstockinged feet were a pair of yellow satin slippers, and in her mouth a long large cisrar. On the table were red earthen jugs and odd- shaped dishes filled with tortillas, dried meat, boiled fowl, eggs, fresh rolls, and coffee. Scarcely had we started on our way when night NIGHT ON THE RIVER. 169 fell suddenly upon us and the whole heavens were illuminated. Large fireflies glowed like sapphire in their vain endeavor to outshine the stars, which sparkled with almost dazzling brilliancy above them. Behold here a new heaven and a new earth ! new constellations above and new fruits and flowers below. A torch placed in the bow of the boat cast weird shadows over the disturbed water, and threw into denser blackness the bordering thickets. Presently the moon came up from behind the mountains of verdure ; and while the swarthy forms of the boatmen marched to their monotonous strains, the tired travel- ler sat silently with cramped legs, or lay his aching back upon the heaped up luggage and watched in dreamy speculation the blazing stars. Passing Ahorca Lagarto we spent the whole of the following day toiling up the stream under a burning sun, with occa- sional showers of rain, the hot glare upon the water and the steaming rottenness on the land being at times almost unendurable ; now and then we landed to rest and eat. The crisp cool morning and evening- air, laden with sweet odors from the woodlands, was most refreshing. Part of the next night we laid over at Barbacoas, a native village with huts of poles and palm-leaves furnished with a mat to stretch on and a hammock to loll in, and thick with swarms of naked children. Before the tramp of gold-seekers awoke their avarice, centuries came and went, and the dolce far niente of the natives, like their soft skies and fragfrance-breathinof forests, was undisturbed. Too indulgent nature by withholding the necessity re- moved the incentive to action. The next day we reached Gorgona, which ended our boating and the first stage of the journey across the Isthmus. Two days and nights were usually oc- cupied in accomplishing this distance, portions of the days being taken for rest and portions of the nights for travel. There were two points on the river where passengers were accustomed to leave their boat and 170 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. take a mule trail for Panama — Gorgona and Cruces, the latter being about six miles from the former; in- deed, there was a third landing, Obispo, lying between the other two at a sharp bend in the river. Gorgona is the head of river navigation for six months of the year, namely, from November to April, and Cruces for the other six months. The trails from these differ- ent points all unite before reaching Panama. At Gorgona, that is to say the Place of Rocks, we found a bamboo-built hotel with thatched roof and ground floor, the principal room having round the sides rows of grass hammocks hung on a frame-work of upright posts in the form of shelves one over an- other like the steeraofe berths of a steamer. These berths were of sufficient size to accommodate an out- stretched man, and one of them I engaged for the night for one dollar. Evidently the landlord knew how to keep a hotel. After supper I went out to take a survey of the place. The scenery thence is bolder than any I have yet seen on the Isthmus. The town, consisting of about a hundred houses, is built on a high table-land, whence rise hills and moun- tains on every side, covered with drift-like masses of vegetation moved by the meeting winds from two oceans, and forming an amphitheatre through which flows the tortuous stream at my feet. Yonder is the crowning peak of Carabali whence, it is said, both the Atlantic and Pacific may be seen from one spot. Besides the house in which I lodged were five or six ■others, some of them of boards, some of adobe with tiled roofs, and some of reeds, with large signs such as " Union Hotel," '* Hotel Francaise," and the like, kept mostly by Yankee landlords, who appeared to know how to make the most out of the traffic. The carrying trade between here and Panama smacks of Yankee enterprise, as do also the gaming tables where the natives lay down their hard-earned dollars. There were also a few stores, and an abundance of drinking saloons and fandango houses. Night came on apace, GORGONA. 171 and darkness, falling suddenly when once the glaring- sun dropped behind the hills, and soon a blaze of light poured from the hotels, saloons, and gambling and dance houses in front, while a thousand moving torches glimmered m the surrounding darkness, and mingled with the promiscuous mass of brute and human life. Rising in the background was the dark silent wood, and in front the sluggish stream, on whose bank this so strange assemblage had gathered. There was a fandango that night; there always seems to be one at places of this kind. The Gorgonan upper ten danced at the alcalde's; the baser sort on the sward beneath a vertical moon, Byron is right in his sarcasm on the chaste moon. It was a half barbaric and wholly voluptuous dance, and the reward of the danseuse, the most enduring and suggestive, was to ha>"e the hats of the company piled on her head — a doubtful honor considering the heads from which they come. These hats had the advantage over beehives, that their inhabitants did not sting. Rising early next morning, and partaking of a hasty breakfast of beans, salt meat, coarse black bread, and coffee without milk, I went out and encountered a scene similar to that at Gatun, where we had embarked on the river below two days before, except that in the present bargaining mules took the place of boats, and there was an absence of that wild hilarity which displayed itself immediately on landing from the steamer. All throuoh the nip'ht boats had been arrivino- and there were now a hundred of them and more strung side by side at the landing. On the low shelving sandy bank were scattered miners' tents and native huts, uncovered piles of baggage, mingled with which were the prostrate forms of unhoused pilgrims, landlords, muleteers, and transport contract- ors, while up the steep embankment, rising from the river-bottom, were bands of fly-blown horses of the or- der of Rosinante, neighing to the mournful melody of mules, and filling the heavens with their discords. 172 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. To add to the commotion, we here met the main body of returning CaHfornians, on their way from Panamd to take the steamer which we had left. Some of them were neatly clad, orderly, and quiet ; others, in their shaggy hair and long untrimmed beard, guarding with religious care their torn and earth- stained garments, as sacred relics of their pilgrimage, were laden with gold-dust, and wore in their bronzed visao-es the smirk of success ; but by far the greater number were disappointed-looking men, poorly dressed, some suffering from rheun:atism, crippled limbs, and broken constitutions; some with their formerly stal- wart frames shrunken and wasted by fever, and many disheartened, bankrupt wretches, who had been stripped of their all, and were now returning to their homes, scattering curses on California as they went alono". It is a siixnificant fact that the steamer steer- age was better filled on the return trip than on the voyage out ; and there was more money in the pock- ets and in the gold-dust belts of the steerage passen- gers than in those of the cabin passengers. The rea- sons were these: Returning Californians comprised four several classes. First, those who could get home no other way, who could barely scrape enough together to buy a steerage ticket. Secondly, those who had money, but who had toiled hard for it, were accus- tomed to roughing it, and preferred economizing here that they might have the more hereafter; this was a large class. Thirdly, inefficient and impecunious sons or relatives of gentlemen, who were heljDed to Cali- fornia by their friends in the hope that they would there develop into something, and were now, after having made a miserable failure of it, being helped back to their homes in order to save them from total destruction. These could by no means make up their minds to descend into the depths so long as they had friends to foot their bills. And fourthly, men of means, whose money was chiefly in bills of exchange. Many miners went home in the steerage armed to the GOING AND RETURNING. 173 teeth, and well laden with gold-dust, two or more friends uniting;: their accumulations, and each in turn guarding their treasure night and day, never leavhig it for an instant during the entire trip. This was in order to save the freight, which was then high. They argued if they got through, their money should ; if it was lost, all would go down together. Narrowly they eyed one another, the going and the returning, one with interest not unmingled with ad- miring envy, and the other with an air of superiority, perhaps with contemptuous pity. Ah! the mighty power of gold, in which is condensed all that is bright and beautiful of earth, all that is holy of heaven and hateful of hell, in whose yellow molecules are wrapped all human virtue and passion, that could thus consum- mate this meeting-, brincrino; together from the remotest ends of earth brave men of thought and deed, meeting here in the heart of a tropical wilderness, in the middle of this narrow Isthmus which so provokingly obstructs the world's commerce, on the topmost point, round which revolves the two Americas and the two great oceans, meeting in a pestilential clime, some hurrying one way and some another, some sick to death of gold- seeking, others burning for it ! It was not a little curious, the sight, as we stood and watched them there, the outward bound and homeward bound, some with the confident swagger of greenness yet upon them, rude and unaccommodating in their grumbling selfishness, stupid in their perverse independence, and surly in their unreasonable opposition to order and regulations ; the others, men of like origin and caste, but licked into some degree of form and congruity by their rough experiences, rude and ragged they may be, but quieter, more subdued, more easily adapting themselves to circumstances, more ready to yield some fancied right for the common good, more humanized and harmonious, whether more polished or not. Light like that of revelation seems to have broken in upon them during their wanderings, enlighten- 174 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. ing tlieir minds and toning their hearts to new sensibiUties. With as Httle delay as possible our passengers handed their baggage to the packers, hired saddle- mules, paying from ten to twenty dollars for a beast to Panama, and mounting, filed off into the narrow path that marked the way. Some of the women donned man's apparel, and rode man-wise; others accepted a compromise, and followed Mrs Amelia Bloomer, who cut off her skirts and paraded the streets of New York in short clothes first in 1849, just in time for the California-going sisterhood to adopt that costume on the Isthmus ; others refused in any wise to molest the sacred limits of their petticoats, prefer- ring to die rather than to outrage modesty, shame the sex, and exhibit their large ankles even to the barbarians, among whom he who wore the least cloth- ing was most in fashion, nakedness absolute being full dress. Children were seated in chairs strapped to tlie backs of natives ; luggage was also carried lashed to the backs of porters. For so supposedly enervating a climate, the loads these natives, negroes and mongrels, are capable of carrying is surprising. I was told that some of them frequently packed on their backs 250 pounds from Gorgona to Panamd, twenty-five miles, in a day and a half Many of the passengers engaged these men to carry their effects, and made the journe}'" with them on foot. There was no wagon road across the Isthmus, and the trail from Gorgona, though not so broken as that from Cruces, was rough in the extreme, and led through a greatly diversified country. Two miles brought us across the table land, when we entered a dense forest, from which the sun was wholly excluded by the overhanging branches. Thence we followed the path successively over soft, uneven ground, through shady canons, and mountain chasms murky in their gloomy solitude, up and round precipitous hillsides cut by travel into steps and stairs, on which and into THE ISTHMUS LAND JOURNEY. 175 well-worn holes the careful and sagacious animal placed his foot tenderly, knowing that an inch or two on the wrong side of it would send him sliding down the steep slope. Now we would be under a canopy of creepers trellised with palms, now winding through a valley of impervious undergrowth, rustling with serpents, in- sects, and birds, and then out into the broad, open, burning plain, crossing turbid streams and mountain rills, wading some filthy morass, rounding rocky cliffs, and exposed alternately to sun and rain. Descending with slow and cautious step the steep declivities from the little spot of table-land round Gorgona, then as- cendinor and descendino; ao;ain and again until tierra caliente is reached, the scenery is ever changing, now captivating with its beauty, and now thrilling with its magnificence. Often we passed through ravines which had been washed out by the rain, and so narrow at the bottom that on entering at either end persons must shout in order to notify others wish- ing to come from the opposite direction. Hearing the whoops of muleteers within, we were often obliged to wait until they should emerge, when we could enter, and shout for those coming from the opposite direction to wait their turn. Some of these gullies have been worn down thirty feet and more by centuries of travel, and are so narrow at the bottom that a loaded mule can barely get through. Often when travellers met, one would have to turn back ; and again, when caught in tight places, horsemen would draw up their legs, and so let the animals squeeze past each other, when this could be done. All along the way crosses marked the resting-place of those overtaken by fever or assas- sin, while the murderer himself found unsanctified sepulchre beneath a pile of stones at the cross-roads. Every now and then we would stop to rest at a way- side rancheria, where bread, warm water, and vile liquors were sold at exorbitant prices. Then there were more pretentious houses where the belated trav- eller could spend the night, the '* Halfway House " and 176 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. the " True Half-way House " kept by Europeans or Americans. Tea and coffee were plentiful along the route, but milk was scarce. The water of the Isth- mus, for drinking purposes, early acquired a bad name ; its effects were said to be extremely deleterious, espe- cially on Europeans, The distaste, thus or other- wise arising for this fluid, so fastened itself on many of the pilgrims that it never afterward left them ; for on arriving in California they seemed to prefer strych- inne whiskey even to the melted snow of the Sierra. As a matter of fact, water, and nothing else, taken sparingly will carry one through fatigue and inhospit- able climates better than any stimulant. In crossing the Isthmus thousands have killed themselves, or planted the seeds of disease, under the excuse that water was pernicious. In ancient times there was a trail from Panama to Cruces, paved with large round stones from six to eighteen inches in diameter. In places it was three feet wide. It overlaid all the softer ground, and con- nected with the rocky defiles and hillside shelves, where it frequently narrowed to a foot in width. Near Pa- nama it widened yet more and was kept in tolerable repair, but the upper end was dilapidated and almost useless, being washed away by flood, or cut under or broken sheer asunder by torrents, so as to leave it in pieces high above the sunken bottom of a ravine. Over these disordered heaps of smooth stones mingled with soft deep mud, the poor heavily laden mule was obliged to stumble, and the wonder was how he ever got through at all. Though not as comely as the beau- tiful beasts of Europe, these mules, with their limbs of steel, show a more marvellous dexterity, risking their feet with confidence, as if by instinct or memory, in dangerous places. There is no necessity for direct- ing the animal you ride ; give him his head and let him go, and when you get to Panamjl get off and give him the bridle ; the master is not far away. The Gor- gona trail strikes the ancient road some seven or eigln PANAMA. 177 iDiles from Panamd, and the glare of a vertical sun on the hot uneven stones of this pavement, as one emerges from the more shaded interior, is painful. Over this old Cruces road and down the river to the northern ocean, the wealth of the South Sea was conveyed for centuries ; and even to this day were to be seen gold trains and silver trains, with uncovered bars of glittering metal corded to the saddles of richly caparisoned mules with jingling bells, in charge of some pompous merchant's clerk, heavily armed, booted and spurred, and attended by a guard of half a dozen yellow musketeers. Thirty or forty mules, sacred to the conveyance of the steamer's gold and mails, crossed as a separate caravan, and often by a route of their own, and these should by no means render the slight- est assistance to any of the passengers, no matter how urgent might be their necessities ; for while the bodies of men and mules go and come, gold and its power remain eternal. Down from the mountains and out of the tropical wilderness we approach the borders of the broad Pa- cific. From a series of plains dotted with patches of black thorn and cactus, and groves of citron, orange, and mango, we strike into the paved road, cross the old stone bridge, and are soon among the planta- tions and suburban residences of Panamd,. Goats and herds of cattle now mingle with bands of pack-mules, mounted stragglers, and pedestrians; water-carriers ply their trade with increased activity as the day draws to a close ; houses, two and three stories in height, of wood and adobe, supplant the remoter reed huts, and following^ the current of grold-seekers we leave behind the shops outside the walls, cross the moat, and pass- ing under the arched and towered gateway of Puerta de Tierra, with its old stone cross and bell, we enter Pa- namd. Dating from the founding of its ancient site, some six miles distant on the beach, Panama is the oldest Cal. Int. Poc. 12 178 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. European city now standing on the mainland of the two Americas. In the year 1515, the story goes, Pedrarias Davila, governor of Castilla del Oro, despatched from Santa Maria de la Antigua del Darien, the first settlement of the Spaniards on the mainland of America, situated on the gulf of Darien, then called Uraba, but whose traces are now wholly obliterated, Antonio Tello de Guzman, a native of Toledo, with one hundred men, and instructions to cross the Isthmus to the South Sea, and establish there a settlement from which to prose- cute discoveries along the shores of the Pacific. After several conflicts with the natives the journey was ac- complished. As he approached the borders of the southern sea, Tello de Guzman heard much of a place called by the natives Panamd,, famous, as the Spaniards supposed, for its wealth ; but in truth, only a collection of fishermen's huts, the name signifying in the aborig- inal tongue, "a place where many fish are taken." This was the discovery and origin of the site of old Panamd ; and although nothing further was accom- plished toward a settlement during this expedition, subsequently, from the reports given by Tello de Guzman, Pedrarias founded the metropolis of his government. There, after the chivalrous Vasco Nunez and his comrades had been beheaded at Ada, the surly old governor quarrelled with Oviedo, and plotted against his best friends. Thence Pedrarias proceeded to pacify Nicaragua, and thence Francisco Pizarro and his bloody crew sailed for the conquest of Peru. "Very noble and very loyal" Charles V. called the town in those days, meaning thereby very much gold, very much gold! Now the spot is so si- lent and dead, so crumbled and forest-enclosed, that on one side 3^ou may pass within ten steps of its ancient walls and discover no city, while from the bay a soli- tary ivy-covered tower is seen, which marks the tomb of crumbled splendor scattered round its base. In 1671 the buccaneers under Henry Morgan, sacked THE OLD AND THE NEW. 1^9 and burned old Panamd, and it was then determined to choose a healthier site before rebuilding the city. The old city boasted its palatial houses of cedar, adorned with paintings and rich hangings, its cathe- dral and other fine churches ; its eight convents, with their costly altar-pieces and gold and silver orna- ments; its 2000 dwellings tenanted by wealthy mer- chants, and 5000 by lesser tradesmen; its royal stables, and beautiful gardens, and fertile fields; and the new city was built upon a scale of yet grander magnificence. But with the decline of Spanish power in the new world, Panama fell. The vast trade upon the Pacific, extending from Chili to California, and across to the Philippine islands, which brought to anchor in her harbor galleys laden with the gold and silver of America, and the rich stuffs and spices of India, and filled her store-houses, and made her mer- chants princes, became scattered. The city sank into a lethargy from which it was partially awakened by the shouts and pistol-shots of a new race of gold-seek- ers. But Ichabod was too deeply graven on her door- posts. The glory of despotism and fanaticism had departed ; and even in the momentary awakening in- cident to the Californian emigration the principal traffic was in the hands of Anglo-Americans. As compared with its ancient grandeur Panamd, until the construction of the ship canal was fairly under way, presented a melancholy appearance. The city is built on a rocky peninsula which juts out some quarter of a mile from the base of the Ancon hill into a broad, peaceful, isle-dotted bay. Across this peninsula from beach to beach, extend streets, inter- sected at right angles by other and broader streets, which invite currents of air, and most of which are well paved. On approaching the city from any direc- tion, the dilapidated fortifications, and cathedral tow- ers, and high, tiled roofs attract the first attention. The houses are built of stone, wood, and adobe; most of them are two stories in height, some three, with 180 THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA. courts or patios, and verandas round the upper stories, beneath which one may walk during a rain over nearly the whole town without getthig wet. The style of church architecture is sui generis, Hispano- American if you like, common to the cathedrals and missions throughout the whole Pacific States; adobe, stone, and stucco thrown together in quaint irregular piles. Some of the principal churches and many of the buildings were in ruins, the roots of ravenous plants boring into the crevices, dislocating the stone, and tearing down the huge walls. The grand old cathedral, however, remained, fronting on the plaza as all cathedrals do, with its towers filled with bells, and mosses and creepers covering its crumbling walls ; beside which there were at the time I first visited the city, a college, a nunnery, and four convents. The cathedral would hold four thousand persons; the roof was supported by large pillars ; round the altar was a profusion of silver ornaments, and flat on the floor were scores of marble slabs on which were graven the virtues of the holy remains resting beneath. The twelve apostles in marble occupied twelve niches in the end toward the plaza. Bats and lizards in- fested the building and disputed with worshippers the right of occupation. Pictures adorned the walls and shrines were placed at intervals around the interior. Over the crucifix of the high altar presided a large silver stork with her young. Throughout the city pearl-oyster shells glittered from steeples and pinnacles, and from the turreted bell-towers at the street corners, every morning at sunrise, came discordant peals, accompanied by the clang of cathedral bells, filling the streets with pious worshippers slowly and silently wending their way to church. On feast days which were many, the city flaunted hter bravest finery, and looked not unlike a wrinkled beldame in gaudy attire. Gaily dressed m^en and women, proudly sporting their Spanish cloaks, and darker-skinned natives in white costumes, marched PRIESTS AND PEOPLE. 181 the streets from one bedizened altar to another, while the shaven priest with his peculiar hat, long black robe with brijj^ht satin lining^, small clothes fastened at the knee with golden buckles, white silk stockings, slippered feet, and cigar, surveyed with zealous inter- est the effect of his enli