goes of merchandise: no wharves, warehouses, stores, streets, offices, lumber, or labor were to be had at any price. July, 1849, found the Bay of San Francisco filling with the ships of every nation, and the Golden Gate received a continuous stream of shipping. The flags of every nation, with the peculiar marine architecture, customs, costumes, and language of the newcomers, lent a romantic aspect to a scene fearfully wild and disordered, in consequence of the haste and anxiety of all to start for the mines; for now the most fabulous stories, with the fact of the arrival of millions of dollars in gold-dust, wrought the public mind into a feverish delirium. Five hundred square-rigged vessels lay in the harbor, with half a mile of mud-flats between them and high-water mark-Montgomery street; but one wharf, Broadway, to accommodate this fleet. Agents and consignees of these valuable ships and cargoes found the crews (sometimes including officers) take to the small boats as soon as the anchor was dropped, and head for the Sacramento river toward the new diggings. Lighters, scows, and boats had to land these cargoes, but what could be done? Of the few conveyances of this character, none could be had but at fabulous prices. Laborers, who, a year ago, would have been glad to have received one dollar and a-half a day, now demanded from twenty to thirty dollars. There were no laborers: one man was as good as anotherthey were "in a free country:" who would labor for hire, when he could go to the mines and become a millionnaire? Still they came: more ships, more people; no room, no lodgings, no lumber, nobody to saw lumber; no forests supposed to be in the country, nobody thinking about forests. Carpenters, blacksmiths, team sters, clerks, sailors, or soldiers, as soon as they touched land-all became miners. Ho! for the mines! The scramble now became powerfully intense: everybody on the run unless stuck in the mud or deep sand. Off came the coats of the merchants, speculators, doctors, and preachers, carrying, lugging, wheeling boxes, goods, and boards, erecting tents of canvas and old sails, tin, raw-hides, blankets, and even of body clothing. The stove-pipe hat, black clothes, and white shirt gave way to the slouch-hat and gray shirt. Razors were out of use: no time to shave. Goods selling at any prices: sometimes at rates making a fortune for the owner, again at prices which brought him to the verge of ruin. The sand-hills and mud-flats now presented the appearance of a battle-field: people of every nation, costume, tongue, and clime, in the busy and excited crowd, hauling, running, trading, buying, selling, building, drinking, fretting, cursing, laughing, dancing, weeping, and doing a little of every thing under the sun but praying; all seemed to flounder about in supreme recklessness. The tailor, shoemaker, and clerk awkwardly pulled at the heavy oar to move the lumbering, freighted scow deserted by the sailors, now on their way to the mines; the judge sweating and chafing, as with judicial invectives he levied his quo warranto upon a refractory mule belly-deep in mire, in the legitimate exercise of his hereditary prerogative of backing out of a bad job; the doctor refusing to see the results of his emetics, and pills cheap at five dollars each. Shovels, boots, blankets, prospecting-pans, butcher-knives, bacon, gray shirts, whiskey, and tobacco were in great demand. Gold sixteen dollars per ounce, weighed on the coffee-scales, or "hefted" in the hand. The first six months of 1849 added more than fifteen thousand to the population of the country, over ten thousand of whom landed in San Francisco: less than two hundred of all this number were women. More ships, more people, more excitement. Splendid ships were left to the mercy of the winds, deserted by all hands. A ship's boat was worth more than a ship, for in the former the crew could make a voyage up the Sacramento river, and thence on foot to the mines. These frail craft, filled with gold-seekers and deeply laden frequently with provisions and tools besides, were headed across the dangerous inland sea of the Bay of San Francisco, and up the Sacramento river, each person armed with some implement of propulsion: the oarsman with oars, passengers with shovels, tin-pans, paddles, pieces of boards, and even the hands and feet served their purpose in endeavoring to propel the crazy little concern, often making but little progress, or brought to a standstill by the excited crew and passengers pulling in opposite directions-one rowing up stream, another on the other side, or his next companion, laboring in his excitement to drive her down stream. The scenes on the river were often very amusing and ludicrous. Even as early as 1849, it was not all gold that glittered; and many a poor fellow, disheartened, ragged, and forlorn, sought the back track, at least as far as San Francisco, where he could earn regular wages at some honest employment, or enter upon the exciting scenes of the gambling-house, now publicly indulged in by all classes. The up-river parties, on meeting a boat coming down stream, would of course suppose that her crew were returning with a load of gold, and would hurriedly in quire the "news from the mines," receiving an answer that all was right up there-that all they had to do was to go up and fill their bags, generally directing them to some place perhaps never heard of before, or noted for its poverty. In evidence of their own success, they would call the attention of the new-comers to several canvas sacks in the bottom of their boat: these generally were filled with a heavy black sand intended for the eyes of the up-river crews, and only served as ballast, being worthless. On beholding these bags, the eyes of the up-river crews were frequently seen to start in their sockets; unintelligible sounds were heard to proceed from their throats as they plunged their oars, shovels, pans, dippers, and legs into the water, while heading toward Sacramento. These bags thus afforded some compensation to the disappointed returning crews. Mining was not confined to the Yuba, American, and Feather rivers, but spread over the entire field of the ravines, gulches, and streams of the foot-hills, and up to the Sierras; many of the locations yielding immense fortunes of pure gold with but little effort or mechanical appliances. More than forty million dollars were obtained in the year 1849; and, from January 19, 1848, the day of the discovery of gold in California, to the beginning of 1870, the gold product of the State has been one billion dollars. (For table and product, see Appendix.) The overland emigration was constantly pouring into the valleys and ravines of the upper country, and here scenes of the wildest excitement prevailed; sometimes caused by the discovery of rich "pockets" in the river beds, or nuggets in the gulches, but oftener by the fabulous reports of waggish or half-crazy "prospect ers," who, without the least foundation in fact, reported the discovery of "mountains of gold," or lakes whose sands were sparkling yellow; the location of these "discoveries" generally being sufficiently distant from those receiving the secret to lend a charm to the tale, and to wear out their patience and exhaust both their body and purse before they returned to their starting point; conscious of their fulfilment of that passage of Scripture which says that "the last condition of that man is worse than the first." Throughout the gulches and ravines, cotton-tent vil- . lages sprang up as if in a single night; soon to present scenes of excitement, activity, and industry. Honesty was a virtue with the "forty-niners:" merchandise, tools, provisions, clothing, and gold-dust were secure in and about the tent-doors both day and night; and not until the floods of adventurers by sea and land poured in did petty thieving commence. There was no time for courts, juries, and lawyers to be occupied in discovering and punishing offenders: so on discovering a thief he was summoned before a few miners, and, if found guilty, was, without delay, placed upon a mule's back, a rope put about his neck, tied to the limb of some sturdy oak, and ordered to stand up; the mule received a lash of a whip, and the culprit was left suspended: thus ended the career of many an early gold seeker. Prices in the gold-fields ran beyond all conception. Luxuries were out of the question: if any were offered, they were bought up at once by those who first saw them, without questions. Vegetables and fruits were scarce: no person had time to attend to the cultivation of the soil: a few apples from Oregon, or from the few |