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"el campo," (the field), and for the government of the peculiar state of society existing in a grazing country.

As California must always be more or less a grazing country, these laws should be translated and put in force by the territorial or state government.

The totally absolute authority of the military governors in California, being substituted in a great measure, as I have stated, for all other authority, the community presented a singular spectacle. Still, the rights of property were held sacred, highway robbery was almost unknown, and public order was well maintained in the country. This speaks well for the character of the people, and indeed there can be no doubt, that the race is much more subservient to persons in authority than our own people are.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Gold Deposits.

Ar the date of my departure from California, the vast deposits of gold had not been discovered. I had travelled over the richest placers* a hundred times, but it had never occurred to me to wash the golden sands over which I travelled and upon which I often slept. Had any idea of the immense treasures I was unconsciously treading beneath my feet occurred to me, I might easily have amassed the wealth of Croesus, and instead of returning as a lieutenant in active service, it would have been an easy matter to have come in my own richly-freighted Argosy. Such is life; such its chances and changes; and, in one respect, the inward life, the life of the soul, is like unto it. A mine of untold wealth is within us, if we would but delve for it, and wash the dirt from the golden sands of our moral placers -but we pass on in the pathway of existence, not dreaming of the hidden treasures which are ready to glitter at our bidding.

It was reported, indeed, that gold had been found in the valleys of the rivers which flow into the Tulé Lakes; but the unrivalled beauties of nature excluded all ideas of avarice, and the enchantments of the distant landscape raised the eye and the thoughts above the coveted dust which lay at my feet. So may it ever be-so may we ever

* This word has now become naturalized among us. It is pronounced in the singular as if written "plarthair," and in the plural as if written "plarthair-ess."

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gaze enraptured on the glories of that far-off shore to which our footsteps are ever tending, and where we should be most anxious to lay up treasures which endure forever.

I profess to know nothing of these gold deposits from my own observation, and perhaps Mr. Benton is right in pronouncing them a curse to California. Certain it is, that a land to which nature has been so prodigal might well dispense with them, and perhaps a hundred years hence it will be apparent that the true wealth of California did not lay in her shining sands. Whether the same eminent senator be right in predicting that those treasures will prove ephemeral no man can determine. The probability is, that large quantities of gold will be found for many years to come, and it is not unlikely that the value of that precious metal will be seriously affected by the vast additions which will be made to the currency of the world in the course of the next ten years.

What is to be the moral effect of this well-founded mania in the present anomalous condition of California, it is fearful to contemplate. She is without government, without laws, without a military force, while tens of thousands of adventurers from all parts of the earth are pouring into her golden valleys. Among these there must be many lawless and dangerous men; and it is to be feared that thousands who go out respectable, law-abiding citizens, will be transformed by the evil spirit of avarice and by associating on familiar terms with the vicious and depraved, into knaves and men of violence. It will not be surprising to hear at any moment of the most atrocious robberies and murders in the gold region, and it is to be hoped that the heterogeneous mass congregated in the valley of the Sacramento and elsewhere, will pause for a moment in their greedy pursuit of gold, and organize an association for the preservation of law and order. In the present state of affairs, it is apparent from the official documents, that it would be in vain to send troops to California. Our very men-of-war

28

OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS.

appear to be infected with insubordination as soon as they approach the magic shores of California, and ere this time a large fleet of merchantmen are rotting in the harbor of San Francisco. Where all this is to end, heaven only knows; and the most effective counteracting measure, would be to immediately quiet the land titles, and hold out inducements to settlers to turn their attention to the cultivation of the soil.

The most reliable and intelligent accounts of the gold deposits are to be found in the public documents, and the probability is, that they will continue to furnish the most authentic data respecting the auriferous regions. It is very certain that, had I been on the spot at the time the rush to the great placer took place, I could have written nothing so complete and graphic as the account furnished by the accomplished temporary governor, Col. R. B. Mason. His admirable report has been copied all over the world-published in every newspaper, and reprinted in ten thousand catch-penny pamphlets. But it still remains the most accurate and authentic history of the discovery of the gold deposits, and of the early operations of the gold collectors. It ought to be preserved in all the books which treat of California, and familiar as it is, I shall republish it in preference to any second-hand statement of my own. I shall also add the despatches of Lieut. Larkin, and Commodore Jones, which will be found extremely interesting.

I begin these interesting extracts with the standard authority-the celebrated report of Col. Mason. Such valuable documents never grow stale.

HEADQUARTERS 10TH MILITARY DEPOT,

MONTEREY, California, Aug. 17, 1848.

SIR: I have the honor to inform you that, accompanied by Lieutenant W. T. Sherman, third artillery, A. A. A General, I started on the twelfth of June last, to make a tour through the northern part of California. My principal

COL. MASON'S REPORT.

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purpose, however, was to visit the newly-discovered gold "placer" in the Valley of the Sacramento. I had proceeded about forty miles, when I was overtaken by an express, bringing me intelligence of the arrival at Monterey of the United States ship Southampton, with important letters from Commodore Shubrick and Lieutenant Colonel Barton. I returned at once to Monterey, and dispatched what business was most important, and on the seventeenth resumed my journey. We reached San Francisco on the twentieth, and found that all, or nearly all its male inhabitants had gone to the mines. The town, which a few months before was so busy and thriving, was then almost deserted.

On the evening of the twenty-fifth, the horses of the escort were crossed to Sousoleto in a launch, and on the following day we resumed the journey by way of Bodega and Sonoma to Sutter's Fort, where we arrived on the morning of the second of July. Along the whole route, mills were lying idle, fields of wheat were open to cattle and horses, houses vacant, and farms going to waste. At Sutter's there was more life and business. Launches were

discharging their cargoes at the river, and carts were hauling goods to the fort, where already were established several stores, a hotel, &c. Captain Sutter had only two mechanics in his employ, (a wagon-maker and blacksmith), to whom he was then paying ten dollars a day. Merchants pay him a monthly rent of one hundred dollars per room; and while I was there, a two-story house in the fort was rented as a hotel for five hundred dollars a month.

At the urgent solicitation of many gentlemen, I delayed there to participate in the first public celebration of our national anniversary at that fort, but on the fifth resumed the journey and proceeded twenty-five miles up the American fork, to a point on it known as the Lower Mines, or Mormon Diggings. The hill-sides were thickly strewn with canvass tents and bush arbors; a store was erected, and several boarding shanties in operation. The day was