Entrance to California.—The Camp at San Francisco in 1849.—Description of the People.—Gold-Hunters.—Speculations.—Prices of Merchandise.—Visit to the Diggings.—Adventures on the Route.—The First Election.—The Constitutional Convention.—San Francisco after Two Months’ Absence.—Poetical Descriptions.—Departure for Mexico.—Arrival at Mazatlan.—Overland to the Capital.—Adventure with Robbers.—Return to New York. The circumstances under which Mr. Taylor entered California, were in striking contrast with those which surrounded him when he made his first attempt to see the world. For, when he started for his European tour, and throughout the whole period of his stay there, he was hindered and annoyed by the lack of money, and by the lack of acquaintances. Then, he was dependent wholly upon his own earnings and economy for every privilege he enjoyed. He had nothing substantial behind him, and nothing certain before him. But in California he moves among the people with the prestige and capital of a powerful journal behind him, and before him the certainty of ample remuneration for all his trials. He is no longer the unknown, uncared-for stripling, whose adventures are regarded as visionary, and whose company was an[121] intrusion. He was the welcomed guest of naval officers, of army officers, and invited to the home of the Military Governor, and to the headquarters of Gen. John C. Fremont.
When he entered San Francisco, that place was only a miners’ camp, composed of tents, barracks, piles of merchandise, and tethered mules. How utterly incomprehensible it seems now to the visitor to that great metropolis, when he reads that, as late as 1849, there were only huts and tents where now stand the palatial business blocks, gorgeous hotels, and miles of residences made of brick and stone! It was an interesting time to visit the Pacific shore, and most interestingly did Mr. Taylor describe it in his letters, and in his book entitled “Eldorado.” The great camp of San Francisco was but a few weeks old when he arrived there; but, in its boiling humanity, Mr. Taylor noticed Malays, Chinamen, Mexicans, Germans, Englishmen, Yankees, Indians, Japanese, Chilians, Hawaiians, and Kanakas, rushing, shouting, gesticulating, like madmen. Gold! Gold! Gold! Everything, anything for gold! Though hundreds lay in the swamps of Panama, dead or dying with the cholera; although the bleaching bones of many enthusiasts gleamed in the sun on the great American desert; although thousands had perished in the thickets, snows, and floods of the Sierra Nevada, their eyes never to be gratified with the sight of gold-dust; yet the increasing multitude followed faster,[122] and more recklessly in their footsteps. Into such a mass of half-insane humanity, did Mr. Taylor thrust himself, that the world, as well as himself, might profit thereby. Great names were given to the smallest things, and prices larger than the names. The Parker House was a board shanty with lodging-rooms at twenty-five dollars a week, and was not more than seventy feet square, but rented to the landlord for one hundred and ten thousand dollars a year. Newspapers sold for a dollar each, and nearly every class of merchandise from the Eastern States brought a profit of several thousand per cent. The wages of a common laborer were from fifteen dollars to twenty dollars a day, while real estate went up so fast in price, that few dared to sell, lest the next day should show that they had lost a fortune. One man, who died insolvent, but having, in his name a small tract of land, left after all a million of dollars to his heirs, so much did the lands increase in value before the estate was settled.
Fortunes were made in a single day. If a man arrived there with anything to sell, he could put his own price upon it, and dispose of it to the first comer. One man, whose store was a log-cabin with a canvas roof, made five hundred thousand dollars in eight months. Gambling was carried on in an equally magnificent scale. Greater bets than Baden-Baden or Monaco ever saw, were common-place there. Millions of dollars changed hands every day. Gold was so[123] plentiful, that boys made immense profits, gathering, out of the dust in the streets, the nuggets and fine gold which had been carelessly allowed to drop from the miners’ bags or pockets.
From that strangest of all strange medleys, Mr. Taylor travelled, mule-back, through a wild and dangerous region, to Stockton, and thence to the productive “diggings” on Mokelumne River. There he saw the miners hard at work gathering the gold in the most primitive manner. The sands found in the dry bed of the river were mixed with gold, while in the crevices and little holes in the rocks, pieces of gold, varying from the size of a five-cent piece to that of a hen’s egg, were frequently found. Gold from the sand was gathered by shaking a bowlful of it until the heaviest particles fell through to the bottom; and by washing away the finer particles of dirt, and picking out the stones with the fingers. Nearly every miner found some gold; but those who made the immense fortunes were quite rare. For many of such as were in luck, and who found great sums, were so sure of finding more, that they squandered what they had discovered, in a manner most unfortunate for them, but very fortunate for those who had found nothing. All the details, experiences, and adventures of these followers of Mammon were exhibited to Mr. Taylor, and the most tempting offers made to him to dig for himself. But, true to his employers, he turned from mines “with millions in them,” and wrote[124] letters for the “Tribune.” Over jagged mountains, through thickets of thorns, through muddy rivers, over desert plains, and along routes, dangerous alike from man and beast, he fearlessly pursued his journey of observation, exhibiting many of those characteristics which have distinguished H. M. Stanley, that other great correspondent. Sights he saw that curdled the blood; men he met, pale, haggard, and dying; bones he saw of lost and starved miners; and the extremes of misery and joy, wealth and poverty, generosity and meanness, faith in God, and worship of the devil, which must have bewildered him.
The fact that he had money and social influence did not protect him from the hardships common to all travellers who visited the gold mines of California at that early period. Many nights he slept in the open air, having his single blanket and the cold earth for a bed. Often he made his couch on a table or the floor in some rude and dirty cabin. Sometimes he was lost in the woods or among the mountains, and frequently suffered long for food and water. He was determined to see the land and its freight of human life in its most practical form, although by so doing he often risked the loss of comfort, of property, and occasionally of his life.
One of the most interesting chapters of history to be found in any work connected with life in the United States, is to be found in his simple but graphic account of the first election in California. The rough, disintegrated,[125] and shifting communities of that new land had for a year and a half depended for law and order upon the innate respect for the rights of others to be found in the hearts of a majority of civilized men. Beyond this there were organized in some of the mining towns a vigilance committee, and in a few others a judge with almost supreme power was elected by a vote of the people. These officials administered justice by common consent, having no commission or authority from the National Government. The enormous crowds of immigrants which filled towns and cities in a single month made the necessity for some form of State or Territorial government apparent to the least thoughtful. So a few of the more enterprising individuals, advised and assisted by the military authorities, undertook to bring order out of chaos by calling upon the people to elect delegates to a Constitutional Convention. The readiness and systematic manner in which the people of that whole region responded to the call, was one of the most remarkable as well as one of the most instructive popular movements to be found in the annals of freedom. The meeting of that Constitutional Convention at Monterey; the rude accommodations, the ability of the body, the harmony of their deliberations, and the wisdom of their regulations and provisions, was the subject of many most enthusiastic epistles from the pen of Mr. Taylor. In his celebrated book, now so much prized by the people of California, and by students of American history, he gives many[126] little details and incidents which are left out of other books and so often overlooked by authors and correspondents, but which are of inestimable importance in gaining an accurate knowledge of the inside social and political beginnings of that powerful State. He described the appearance of the building in which the Convention met, gives sketches of the prominent actors in the assembly, and, as if foreseeing how posterity would like to preserve the memory of that great day, he gives the complexion, color of the hair, stature, and dress of the noted men who held seats. It is as exciting as one of Scott’s novels to read of the emotion, the tears, among those legislators when the new State was born, and when the “thirty-first” gun was fired from the fort to announce the completion of the great ev............