THE RESOURCEFUL AMERICANS
After a month or two spent on the Tuolumne and Merced rivers, and in the
more sparsely populated section of country lying still farther south, I
returned to Sonora, on my way to San Francisco.
Here I took the stage for Stockton--a large open wagon, drawn by five
horses, three leaders abreast. We were well ballasted with about a dozen
passengers, the most amusing of whom was a hard, dried-up man, dressed
in a greasy old leathern hunting-shirt, and inexpressibles to match, all
covered with tags and fringes, and clasping in his hand a long rifle,
which had probably been his bosom-friend all his life. He took an early
opportunity of informing us all that he was from Arkansas; that he came
to “Calaforny” across the plains, and having been successful in the
diggings, he was now on his way home. He was like a schoolboy going home
for the holidays, so delighted was he with the prospect before him. It
seemed to surprise him very much that all the rest of the party were not
also bound for Arkansas, and he evidently looked upon us, in
consequence, with a degree of compassionate interest, as much less
fortunate mortals, and very much to be pitied.
We started at four o’clock in the morning, so as to accomplish the sixty
or seventy miles to Stockton before the departure of the San Francisco
steamer. The first ten or twelve miles of our journey were consequently
performed in the dark, but that did not affect our speed; the road was
good, and it was only in crossing the hollows between the hills that the
navigation was difficult; for in such places the diggings had frequently
encroached so much on the road as to leave only sufficient space for a
wagon to pass between the miners’ excavations.
We drove about thirty miles before we were quite out of the mining
regions. The country, however, became gradually less mountainous, and
more suitable for cultivation, and every half-mile or so we passed a
house by the roadside, with ploughed fields around it, whose occupant
combined farming with tavern-keeping. This was all very pleasant
traveling, but the most wretched part of the journey was when we reached
the plains. The earth was scorched and baked, the heat was more
oppressive than in the mountains, and for about thirty miles we moved
along enveloped in a cloud of dust, which soaked into one’s clothes and
hair and skin as if it had been a liquid substance. On our arrival in
Stockton we were of a uniform color all over--all identity of person was
lost as much as in a party of chimney-sweeps; but fortunately the
steamer did not start for an hour, so I had time to take a bath, and
make myself look somewhat like a white man before going on board.
The Stockton steamboats, though not so large as those which run to
Sacramento, were not inferior in speed. We steamed down the San Joaquin
at about twenty miles an hour, and reached San Francisco at ten o’clock
at night.
San Francisco retained now but little resemblance to what it had been in
its earlier days. The same extraordinary contrasts and incongruities
were not to be seen either in the people or in the appearance of the
streets. Men had settled down into their proper places; the various
branches of business and trade had worked for themselves their own
distinct channels; and the general style of the place was very much the
same as that of any flourishing commercial city.
It had increased immensely in extent, and its growth had been in all
directions. The barren sandhills which surrounded the city had been
graded down to an even slope, and were covered with streets of
well-built houses, and skirted by populous suburbs. Four or five wide
streets, more than a mile in length, built up with solid and uniform
brick warehouses, stretched all along in front of the city, upon ground
which had been reclaimed from the bay; and between these and the upper
part of the city was the region of fashionable shops and hotels, banks
and other public offices.
The large fleet of ships which for a long time, while seamen’s wages
were exorbitantly high, lay idly in the harbor, was now dispersed, and
all the shipping actually engaged in discharging cargo found
accommodation alongside of the numerous piers which had been built out
for nearly a mile into the bay. All manner of trades and manufactures
were flourishing as in a place a hundred years old. Omnibuses plied upon
the principal thoroughfares, and numbers of small steamboats ran to the
watering-places which had sprung up on the opposite shore.
The style of life had improved with the growth of the city, and with the
increased facilities of procuring servants and house-room. The ordinary
conventionalities of life were observed, and public opinion exercised
its wonted control over men’s conduct; for the female part of creation
was so numerously represented that births and marriages occupied a space
in the daily papers larger than they require in many more populous
places.
Female influence was particularly observable in the great attention men
paid to their outward appearance. There was but little of the
independent taste and individuality in dress of other days; all had
succumbed to the sway of the goddess of fashion, and the usual style of
gentleman’s dress was even more elaborate than in New York. All classes
had changed, to a certain extent, in this respect. The miner, as he is
seen in the mines, was not to be met with in San Francisco; he attired
himself in suitable raiment in Sacramento or Stockton before venturing
to show himself in the metropolis.
Gambling was decidedly on the wane. Two or three saloons were still
extant, but the company to be found in them was not what it used to be.
The scum of the population was there; but respectable men, with a
character to lose, were chary of risking it by being seen in a public
gambling-room; and, moreover, the greater domestic comfort which men
enjoyed, and the usual attractions of social life, removed all excuse
for frequenting such places.
Public amusements were of a high order. Biscaccianti and Catherine
Hayes were giving concerts, Madame Anne Bishop was singing in English
opera, and the performances at the various theaters were sustained by
the most favorite actors from the Atlantic States.
Extravagant expenditure is a marked feature in San Francisco life. The
same style of ostentation, however, which is practiced in older
countries, is unattainable in California, and in such a country would
entirely fail in its effect. Extravagance, accordingly, was indulged
more for the purpose of procuring tangible enjoyment than for the sake
of show. Men spent their money in surrounding themselves with the best
of everything, not so much for display as from due appreciation of its
excellence; for there is no city of the same size or age where there is
so little provincialism; the inhabitants, generally, are eminently
cosmopolitan in their character, and judge of merit by the highest
standard.
As yet, the influence of California upon this country [England] is not
so much felt by direct communication as through the medium of the
States. A very large proportion of the English goods consumed in the
country find their way there through the New York market, and in many
cases in such a shape, as in articles manufactured in the States from
English materials, that the actual value of the trade cannot be
accurately estimated. The tide of emigration from this country to
California follows very much the same course. The English are there,
very numerous, but those direct from England bear but an exceedingly
small proportion to those from the United States, from New South Wales,
and other countries; and the latter, no doubt, possessed a great
advantage, for, without undervaluing the merit of English mechanics and
workmen in their own particular trade, it must be allowed that the same
class of Americans are less confined to one speciality, and have more
general knowledge of other trades, which makes them better men to be
turned adrift in a new country, where they may have to employ themselves
in a hundred different ways before they find an opportunity of following
the trade to which they have been brought up. An English mechanic, after
a few years’ experience of a younger country, without losing any of the
superiority he may possess in his own trade, becomes more fitted to
compete with the rest of the world when placed in a position where that
speciality is unavailable.
California has afforded the Americans their first opportunity of showing
their capacity as colonists. The other States which have of late years
been added to the Union, are not a fair criterion, for they have been
created merely by the expansion of the outer circumference of
civilization, by the restlessness of the backwoodsman unaided by any
other class; but the attractions offered by California were such as to
draw to it a complete ready-made population of active and capable men,
of every trade and profession.
The majority of men went there with the idea of digging gold, or without
any definite idea of how they would employ themselves; but as the wants
of a large community began to be felt, the men were already at hand
capable of supplying them; and the result was, that in many professions,
and in all the various branches of mechanical industry, the same degree
of excellence was exhibited as is known in any part of the world.
Certainly no new country ever so rapidly advanced to the same high
position as California; but it is equally true that no country ever
commenced its career with such an effective population, or with the same
elements of wealth to work upon. There are circumstances, however,
connected with the early history of the country which may not appear to
be so favorable to immediate prosperity and progress. Other new
countries have been peopled by gradual accessions to an already formed
center, from which the rest of the mass received character and
consistency; but in the case of California the process was much more
abrupt. Thousands of men, hitherto unknown to each other, and without
mutual relationship, were thrown suddenly together, unrestrained by
conventional or domestic obligations, and all more intently bent than
men usually are upon the one immediate object of acquiring wealth. It is
to be wondered that chaos and anarchy were not at first the result of
such a state of things; but such was never the case in any part of the
country; and it is, no doubt, greatly owing to the large proportion of
superior men among the early settlers, and to the capacity for
self-government possessed by all classes of Americans, that a system of
government was at once organized and maintained, and that the country
was so soon entitled to rank as one of the most important States of the
Union.
The consequences to the rest of the world of the gold of California it
is not easy to determine, and it is not for me to enter upon the great
question as to the effect on prices of an addition to the quantity of
precious metals in the world of £250,000,000, which in round numbers is
the estimated amount of gold and silver produced within the last eight
years.[6] It seems, however, more than probable that the present high
range of prices may, to a certain extent, be caused by this immense
addition to our stock of gold and silver. But the question becomes more
complicated when we consider the extraordinary impetus given to commerce
and manufactures by this sudden production of gold acting simultaneously
with the equally expanding influence of Free Trade. The time cannot be
far off when this important investigation must be entered upon with all
that talent which can be brought to bear upon it. But this is the domain
of philosophers, and of those whose part in life it is to do the
deep-thinking for the rest of the world. I have no desire to trespass on
such ground, and abstain also from fruitlessly wandering in the endless
mazes of the Currency question.
There are other thoughts, however, which cannot but arise on considering
the modern discoveries of gold. When we see a new country and a new home
provided for our surplus population, at a time when it was most
required--when a fresh supply of gold, now a necessary to civilization,
is discovered, as we were evidently and notoriously becoming so urgently
in want of it, we cannot but recognize the ruling hand of Providence.
And when we see the uttermost parts of the earth suddenly attracting
such an immense population of enterprising, intelligent, earnest
Anglo-Saxon men, forming, with a rapidity which seems miraculous, new
communities and new powers such as California and Australia, we must
indeed look upon this whole Golden Legend as one of the most wondrous
episodes in the history of mankind.
THE END.
_OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY--NEW YORK_
OUTING ADVENTURE LIBRARY
[Illustration]
Edited by Horace Kephart
Here are brought together for the first time the great stories of
adventure of all ages and countries. These are the personal records of
the men who climbed the mountains, penetrated the jungles, explored the
seas and crossed the desert; who knew the chances and took them, and
lived to write their own tales of hardship, endurance and achievement.
The series will consist of an indeterminate number of volumes--for the
stories are myriad. The whole will be edited by Horace Kephart. Each
volume answers the test of these questions: Is it true? Is it
interesting? The entire series is uniform in style and binding. Among
the titles now ready or in preparation are those described on the
following pages. Price $1.00 each, net. Postage 10 cents extra.
IN THE OLD WEST, by George Frederick Ruxton. The men who blazed the
trail across the Rockies to the Pacific were independent trappers and
hunters in the days before the Mexican war. They left no records of
their adventures and most of them linger now only as shadowy names. But
a young Englishman lived among them for a time, saw life from their
point of view, trapped with them and fought with them against the
Indians. That was George Frederick Ruxton. His story is our only
complete picture of the Old West in the days of the real pioneers, of
Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Bill Williams, the Sublettes, and all the rest
of that glorious company of the forgotten who opened the West.
CASTAWAYS AND CRUSOES. Since the beginning of navigation men have faced
the dangers of shipwreck and starvation. Scattered through the annals of
the sea are the stories of those to whom disaster came and the personal
records of the way they met it. Some of them are given in this volume,
narratives of men who lived by their hands among savages on forlorn
coasts, or drifted helpless in open boats. They range from the South
Seas to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, from Patagonia to Cuba. They are
echoes from the days when the best that could be hoped by the man who
went to sea was hardship and man’s-sized work.
CAPTIVES AMONG THE INDIANS. First of all is the story of Captain James
Smith, who was captured by the Delawares at the time of Braddock’s
defeat, was adopted into the tribe, and for four years lived as an
Indian, hunting with them, studying their habits, and learning their
point of view. Then there is the story of Father Bressani who felt the
tortures of the Iroquois, of Mary Rowlandson who was among the human
spoils of King Philip’s war, and of Mercy Harbison who suffered in the
red flood that followed St. Clair’s defeat. All are personal records
made by the actors themselves in those days when the Indian was
constantly at our forefather’s doors.
FIRST THROUGH THE GRAND CANYON, by Major John Wesley Powell. Major
Powell was an officer in the Union Army who lost an arm at Shiloh. In
spite of this, four years after the war he organized an expedition which
explored the Grand Canyon of the Colorado in boats--the first to make
this journey. His story has been lost for years in the oblivion of a
scientific report. It is here rescued and presented as a record of one
of the great personal exploring feats, fitted to rank with the exploits
of Pike, Lewis and Clark, and Mackenzie.
ADRIFT IN THE ARCTIC ICE-PACK, by Dr. Elisha Kent Kane. Dr. Kane was
connected with one of the numerous relief expeditions which went north
in the middle of the last century, sailing from New York early in the
spring of 1849. They found themselves caught in the ice of Lancaster
Sound early in the fall and spent the entire winter driving to and fro
across the Sound frozen fast in the ice-pack. Dr. Kane’s narrative gives
the most vivid and accurate account that has ever appeared of ship life
during an arctic winter. He contributes many important observations as
to ice and weather conditions. His picture of the equipment and
provisions makes rather strange reading in the light of our modern
development for exploration purposes.
THE LION HUNTER, by Ronalyn Gordon-Cumming. The author was an Englishman
who was among the first of the now numerous tribe of sportsmen writers.
Going out to South Africa in the early half of the last century he found
a hunting field as yet untouched; antelope roamed the plains like cattle
on a western range and lions were almost as numerous as coyotes in the
old cattle days. In the course of his wanderings with the handful of
natives, he penetrated the far interior of Africa and finally
encountered Livingston. His account of his experiences with dangerous
game armed only with the old-fashioned muzzle-loaded rifles makes the
exploits of modern sportsmen seem almost puny in their safety.
HOBART PASHA, by Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden. Recollections of one
of the most remarkable men of the 19th century. He served in the English
Navy from 1835-1863, after which he engaged in blockade running in the
interest of the Confederacy, in the prosecution of which he had many
close shaves but was never caught. He then entered the Turkish navy,
built it up and fought against the Russians. The whole book is filled
with thrilling adventures and narrow escapes.
ADVENTURES IN MEXICO, by George Frederick Ruxton. This volume describes
Ruxton’s second visit to America, but this time he landed at Vera Cruz,
from where he went to Mexico City and thence north to the American
border. Mexico was then at war with the United States, bandits roamed
over the country right up to the gates of the capital, and Indians
infested the northern part. Still he made the journey of 2,000 miles,
often alone, experiencing many exciting adventures.
WILD LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, by George Frederick Ruxton. A
continuation of Ruxton’s ADVENTURES IN MEXICO, from Chihuahua north. In
the course of his journey he had to pass through treeless deserts, where
he suffered much from lack of water; spent the winter in the Rocky
Mountains and finally crossed the United States boundary.
*THE GOLD HUNTER, by J. D. Borthwick. He was an English artist who
joined the rush of treasure seekers to California in 1851. It is a
lively description of the voyage via Panama, of San Francisco from its
days of the bowie-knife and top-boots to its development into an orderly
community, of life (and death) in “the diggings” and of the motley
gathering of all nationalities in town and camp, their toil, sports,
virtues, crimes and shifting fortunes. The book covers the period from
1851-1856.
GREAT DIVIDE, THE, by Earl Dunraven. Sport and travel in the Upper
Yellowstone in the summer of 1874 with George Kingsley and Texas Jack.
Stalking the wapiti and bighorn, encounters with grizzlies, camp life at
its best and worst, Indians and frontiersmen, the joys of wild life and
the pathos of it, the crest of the continent and the vales of
“Wonderland,” all are depicted by the Earl of Dunraven.
LIFE AMONG THE APACHES, by John C. Cremony. He was interpreter of the
United States Boundary Commission and served against the Indians as
Major of a California regiment during the Civil War. His personal
encounters with the Apaches were of the most desperate nature.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
absinthe, curaçoa=> absinthe, curaçao {pg 72}
they got the length=> they go to the length {pg 78}
Kadiak Island, Alaska=> Kodiak Island, Alaska {pg 178 fn 3}
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Usually the tannin was extracted by placing the acorn flour in some
sort of filter and letting water percolate through it.--ED.
[2] Albino freaks.--ED.
[3] The grizzlies of early California were larger than those of
the Rocky Mountains, but estimates of their weight were commonly
exaggerated. The largest bear of any species of which there is record
was one killed by J. C. Tolman, in October, 1889, at the head of
English Bay, on Kodiak Island, Alaska. The skin, when moderately
stretched on the ground, was 13 ft. 6 in. long by 11 ft. 6 in. wide;
length of head, 20 in.; breadth, 12 in.; length of hind foot, 20 in.;
breadth, 12 in.; weight of carcass with entrails and blood removed,
1,656 lbs.; estimated live weight, a little over a ton.--ED.
[4] Arrastres.--ED.
[5] Under two hundred miles in an air line.--ED.
[6] An over-estimate: probably about $500,000,000.--ED.