early diminution of power, just as the hoti test fire most quickly burns itself out. The sa religion preached by Mohammed certainly raised his people out of the idolatry and ignorance in which they had been sunk for ages, and gave them a higher ideal, both for this life and the next, than they had ever before possessed. There is an opinion gaining ground that all the great religions of the world have been in part a revelation of divine truth, and have had a work to do on earth. Mohammedanism certainly contained many grains of truth, and has played in important part in the world's history, in aving kept the torch of learning brightly

burning while it was extinguished, or nearly so, among other peoples, and in handing it on to the western world when the latter was prepared to receive and preserve it with care.* Walter B. Scaife.

* AUTHORITIES.

Draper, Intellectual Development of Europe, History of the Conflict between Science and Religion; Botta, Handbook of Universal Literature; Conde, History of the Arabs in Spain, 3 v. ; Von Coppee, The

Conquest of Spain, 2 v.; W. Irving, Life of Mahomet, 2 v.; Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v. 5; Sismondi, Literature of Southern Europe; Rout

ledge, Popular History of Science; Schlegel, History of

Literature; Dean, History of Civilization; Ferguson, History of Architecture; David Urquhart, Pillars of Hercules.

STORIES of the early period of the "American" settlement of California (as if the native Californians were not also Americans, and Indians of the soil the "only original" Americans), of the gold-hunting days, have become almost tedious; and yet, like the gold placers and the tailings of mines imperfectly worked and carelessly thrown out, they sometimes prove worth going over again, if indeed they do not turn out undeveloped deposits. It has been reserved for this age to re-discover the treasures and wonders of the oldest Old World Troan and Assyrian and Indo-Aryan, Mexican ind Central American; there seems likely to e no end of the patient unearthing and educing to history that which has been st in the region of fable; for this is searching as well as a utilitarian age, nd its accumulations of enormous wealth re sometimes wisely and nobly devoted learning and investigation. And while ew England and the Old Dominion, New ork and the Commonwealth of Penn, ill honor and encourage their writers who elve in the buried past, and resurrect or habilitate incidents and records and narrares of the long ago, which they welme as a sort of community heir-loom st and restored, in our new California, th a little more than thirty years of top ing to cover the events and scenes of è most extraordinary settlement the world 3 ever witnessed, and the most exciting och in which dash and greed and endurance 1 intellect ever drove and grasped, tugged, tled, or commanded, it is too much to cry t "the days of '49 are played out," and discourage looking back even for the deit or the diversion of reminiscence, as ugh it were like the crime of Lot's wife. tern magazines and their readers are er satiated with old scenes, and old recs in old places of the old folk who peoi them—why should not the newer old

times of the age of gold continue to be sometimes the theme of the ranking magazine of this land of gold?

It is curious and a study for us who keep going forward while occasionally we glance backward, to recall the travel hither in the early days and to contrast it with that of today. Howland & Aspinwall, the most noted and most enterprising and sagacious of New York shipping merchants, foresaw the value of the traffic upon this coast upon the acquisition of California by the United States and the definite settlement of the Oregon question, and were quick to engage with the government for the building and running of four large ocean steamships, to voyage between Panama and Astoria, Oregon, and make stoppages at the intermediate ports of Mexico and California-Acapulco, Mazatlan, Guaymas, San Diego, Monterey, and San Francisco. There was no idea of gold deposits or gold discovery in California at that time. The enterprise was purely and simply based upon the conviction on the part of the great merchants that this coast was destined

to become one of the richest and most important in commercial rank, and, sooner or later, to command a great share in the trade of China, and measurably, of the Indies. Three of their steamships, the Panama, the California, and the Oregon, were launched before the discovery of gold, and not until these had sailed from New York to take their places in the line was the news of the discovery announced in the East. Then, as though copper were instantly made gold, the enter prise of Howland & Aspinwall--organized into the original Pacific Mail Steamship Company-suddenly sprang into a condition of enormous riches and surpassing importance, greater than it had expected to attain through years of venture and toil, of careful management and masterly ability. It was the most profitable steamship line in the world. The steamships had been built in the best man

ner, so equipped as to serve as war vessels in the event of their need as such by the government, and their cost was in excess, therefore, of the ordinary ocean steamships of the merchant marine of that period. But great as was the cost, the net earnings of each of the three more than paid it all during the first nine months of 1849. And this rich traffic continued through the succeeding four or five years. It is to the enduring credit of that old company that they ran and provisioned and equipped their steamships always in first-class order and to the extent of their ability, the extraordinary exigencies of the "rush" duly considered. A spirit of magnanimity and justice distinguished the company, in contrast with the spirit and conduct of other steamship companies and owners who competed with it for the golden trade. The steamships made monthly trips. San Francisco, instead of Astoria, on the Columbia River, was made the northern terminus. The “rush" precluded the accomplishment of that portion of the contract; also, there was no money in the Oregon trade to compare with the immense profit in carrying passengers and freight between San Francisco and Panama.

At that time San Francisco had no docks or wharves, no landing place for sea-going vessels. Cheap and frail structures, capable of accommodating the small craft of a few tons that plied on the bay and on the rivers between San Francisco and the embarcaderos at San Jose, Sacramento, and Stockton, carrying passengers and freight, were built at Clark's Point, foot of Broadway, and at the foot of what is now Commercial Street, near Sansome. There was not a river steamer in California waters. For want of dockage, the steamers anchored in the bay, in front of the city, on arrival, and passengers were conveyed ashore by small boats at an extra charge of from two to five dollars per head, as the boatmen-copying the practice of hackmen in their time of monopoly-felt inclined to charge. The freight was lightered at an additional heavy cost to the shipper or consignee. The task, in unloading between one thousand and fifteen hundred passengers by every

steamer, and lightering many hundred tons of freight, was tedious and sometimes dangerous; and in taking off sick and prostrate passengers, women and children, the difficulty and peril were a serious task upon the strength and patience of the boatmen. The same labor and trouble were incident to the departure of the steamships, as far as passengers were concerned, but there were then no outgoing freights, beyond the very few instances of extra baggage.

These occasions often served to enable passengers or crews just arrived in sailing vessels from all parts of the world to make their "ounce a day," by manning the ship's boats and competing with the regular boatmen for the carrying ashore of the steamship passengers, and in putting on board those homeward bound. One case is recalled in which a crew of four, with a large skiff built by them on the voyage from New York on board a bark, earned fifty dollars each in taking passengers ashore from the Oregontheir first experience in "striking it rich" in the land of gold. But the good luck and big wages were too much for the equilib rium of two of them-they squandered the money that night in a "good time" ashore. With one of the other two that fifty was the nest egg of the million and more he now possesses. Full value received then and since marked the expenditure of every dollar or dime that ever escaped his hands. Few indeed are the Argonauts who have so care fully hoarded their means and controlled their desires. Yet few of them have less enjoyed life or subjected themselves to more distressing restrictions. He has his riches: he has little else worth having or living for.

A trip from Panama by steamship to San Francisco, at that time, was in itself an exasperating experience, with discomfort in every way-crowded staterooms and doubling in berths for cabin passengers, a ravenous, uncontrollable rush for the table, inadequate room on deck and below either for exercise or rest, jangling and wrangling among mang occasional fights among the rougher lot. T steerage was all the way a pandemonium o insufferable hoggishness at meals and ruffian

ism in forcing breathing space on the part of the aggressive toward the yielding and feeble. And if cleanliness be next to godliness the situation was well-nigh Luciferian. Yet all this upon the steamships on this side was a comfortable and delightful voyage compared to that between New York and the Chagres on the Atlantic steamships run by other companies. Nor was the trip across the Isthmus a thing of beauty and a joy forever, particularly in coming toward California. The landing by boats from the steamer at the Chagres River was unpleasant and at times dangerous. The ascent of the river by bungoes, poled by brutish, unclad negroes in savage state, was slow and disagreeable, especially for ladies, as the bungoes were without cabin or shelter, and there was no protection from exposure in any way. The mule ride from Gorgona or from Chagres, farther up the river, over to Panama was tedious and painful as well as costly-the charges sometimes as high as $50 for the animal for the short journey of either twenty-one or twenty-eight miles, according to the starting point. And the mules sometimes really seemed to be so trained as to relieve themselves of their awkward riders when a few miles upon the road and trot rapidly back to their owners, leaving the dismounted and maddened traveler to nake the remainder of the distance on foot. The road-or trail-was so bad in spots, ere through mire holes and there between arth, or rock walls of the trail, with barely pace for the animal itself, as to keep one al ays on the alert lest he should be plunged r scraped out of the rickety and uncomfortble saddle. And the long detention at 'anama, awaiting the departure of the steamip northward, was a tropical purgatory of vers and fleas which forced one to long for e perils of ocean and the miseries of shipard. But beyond all the sufferings and noyances and delays of the steamship pasngers by the Isthmus route, were the horrs and privations of many who, tired of iting at Panama for the up-bound steamer, barked on sailing vessels poorly provished and in no manner adapted to passentraffic. Some of them were unseaworthy

and wretchedly fitted out, inadequately manned, and dull sailers. In several instances, the voyage between Panama and San Francisco occupied from four to eight months

longer time than the average voyage from Atlantic ports by the way of Cape Horn. And in the low latitudes, becalmed for weeks, on short allowances of food and water, or tossed about in imminent peril of foundering in the gulf gales farther up the coast, the helpless victims on these old hulks endured privations and hardships almost incredible. No small number were unable to withstand these terrors of sea-going, and their bodies were given to the deep.

The long voyage around Cape Horn was more generally taken by the gold-hunters, and the stories of these voyagers can still be recalled with interest and profit. On the breaking out of the gold fever all over the States of the Union, ship-owners and agents. seized and made the most of the opportunity. Every sort of vessel was laid on for the golden shores, from the small schooner of less than a hundred tons to the ship of two thousand. Old packets, old whalers, which had before been worn out in the merchant service, old coasters, old merchantmen condemned from the trade, and old craft of every order, but nothing new, and very few that were fitted for the purpose, were rapidly put into some sort of condition and dispatched, laden with passengers and freight. The rush was so great and the demand for passage so eager that inquiry into the seaworthiness of the vessels or the fitting out, or the capability of the officers and crew, was neither made nor cared for. "To start and to get there" were the main points of consideration. Companies of from ten to two hundred organized, purchased vessels, and equipped and manned them for the voyage. Barely a dozen of these, if so many, continued to be companies after entering San Francisco Bay. The voyage was made by some in from four to six months; others were from six to ten, and some as long as twelve months on the way. It is remarkable that out of the many thousands who voyaged in such indifferent manner, so few