There were bills posted about the city that three of the most celebrated
fighters of Mexico would have an exhibition in the evening, and combat
with animals. As my friend and myself never had seen one we thought we
would go. It was an amphitheatre, with circular seats about the pit,
with thick planks around it, the seats commencing about twenty feet from
the bottom of the pit. There was a door at the side of the pit, which
was raised by pulleys, which admitted the bull. They were wild ones. Our
seat was about the fifth row back. The house was crowded and brilliantly
illuminated. Then the bull-fighters were in the pit, one on horseback,
two on foot, gorgeously and brilliantly dressed, with swords, the blades
pointed like spears, with red flags in their hands to attract the bull.
The door was raised and the animal came rushing in; he was a terrible
one to look at. Blinded by the lights and the scene, he rushed and
roared around the arena; I trembled in my seat, although I was in no
possible danger. The first feat of the bull-fighters was to plant a
rosette on the shoulders of the animal with a barb implanted in his
flesh, which enraged him more, with colored ribbons, two or three feet
in length, attached to the rosette, which was flying in the air as he
went around, indicating to the audience the success of the feat. Then
the same feat was performed on the other shoulder. Then when the bull
attacked the man again, a rosette was implanted between his horns, and
the man escaped, which was the most difficult of all. They had red flags
in one hand to enrage and blind him, but this bull, he became so furious
and enraged that they could not master him. He rushed upon the man on
horseback, threw the horse and rider, and, with his horns, tore the
entrails out of the horse and killed it. The man was wounded, but
escaped. The rest of the fighters fled, and one climbed up the side of
the paling and came within two inches of being impaled alive against the
side by the bull's horns. As I write I can, in imagination, hear the
sound of the animal's horns as they struck the boards in missing the
man. The bull was master of the situation; he had cleared the ring. It
was a terrible sight as he roared around in his fury. Then the most
startling event of all occurred. It seems incredible, but it is the
truth of history, and I must write it.
[Illustration: THE BULL FIGHT]
A greaser, with no weapon, but simply his _seraper_, a shawl that he
wore around his shoulders, took that off and stretching it out in his
hands, jumped down into the pit of the ring alone, to the entire
astonishment of the audience, looked Mr. Bull in the eyes and dodged him
with his shawl as the animal attacked him. He had probably been brought
up among wild bulls. The audience all arose in excitement, expecting to
see him torn to pieces, and crying out for him to escape. The
professional bull-fighters got their red flags and drew the bull off,
and the greaser escaped, and seemed to be surprised at the excitement of
the audience. They succeeded in getting the bull out, and dragging out
the dead horse, and letting in a less ferocious one. The same
performance was gone through with him, as already described, except that
this one was conquered. At last, when the bull pitched at the man, he
holds his sword in such a way that the weight of the animal comes on it,
and passes between his foreshoulders and penetrates his heart. In an
instant the back wilts and the animal lies dead. It was the most sudden
change, from full vitality to death; it startled you. It's a shock to
your nervous system. My friend and myself said it was the first and last
bull-fight we would ever see.
The price of lumber and vegetables kept up. I paid forty cents a pound
for potatoes in buying provisions for the hands on my brig. I furnished
them enough to last them on the up trip, but not for the return, so they
would hurry back. It was now time for the vessel with the houses to
arrive, and I expected to buy a ship with the money, and to go to the
Sandwich Islands and make, what I considered, a fortune for me, but
alas! no _Prince de Joinville_ came. It was hope deferred. Finally the
rainy season set in in full blast, and all consumption of lumber
stopped. The high price had stimulated shipments from everywhere. There
was a big reaction in the price. The first prominent failure in the city
took place, I think it was Ward & Co., commission merchants and private
bankers. It was said it was owing to his large orders of shipments of
lumber to that market. He shot himself with a pistol in the morning in
his bedroom and died, knowing that he could not meet his creditors if he
went to his place of business. About this time it was announced from
Telegraph Hill that my vessel, with the houses, was entering the port
two or three months after she was due, striking a glutted market. I had
four or five thousand dollars to raise to pay the freight on them to get
possession of them, or I would lose the capital invested. So instead of
making $18,000 profit, which I might have made if they had come on time,
I was running the risk of losing the capital invested in them. Colonel
Stevenson had selected six of them some time before, which he wanted for
his New York of the Pacific, which he said he would make me an offer on
as soon as they arrived. I saw it was my only chance to save myself to
close that sale. I was at his office in the morning as soon as there was
any probability of they being there. I said to him: "The houses have
arrived. I am ready to receive your offer for the six you selected." He
said he had no money now. I said I did not want any (which was a white
lie). I said I would take a draft on Prosper, Whetmore & Co., of New
York city, for $3,000, payable in ninety days, and his note for the
balance, on his own time. He looked over the plan of the houses again.
He said he would not give but so much. I said to him, that was not the
question, what will you give? He said I will give you that amount,
naming the sum. I said at once, they are sold, they are yours. He gave
me the draft on Whetmore & Co., for $3,000, payable in ninety days. Just
at this time, his partner, Dr. Parker, came in. The colonel informed him
he had bought six of my houses. He said, you have made a mistake. Lumber
is in a glutted market. It is falling rapidly. The colonel said, that
makes no difference now, I have bought them. The colonel was considered
rich. No one there questioned the soundness of his draft. I went with it
to all the brokers in the city, but could get no offer for it. I then
went to Charley Minton, the agent of the steamer _Senator_. I thought he
could send it to New York to the owners of the steamer for its face
value. He said, the best he could do with me was to give me $2,250 for
it. Money was ten per cent a month, and scarce at that. Three months
time, at the rate of interest there, would be $900. I said, I would
take it. He gave me a check on his broker for that amount. He paid me in
gold, $16 Spanish doubloon pieces. I tied them up in my handkerchief,
and went to McCondery & Co., and said to him, the vessel, with my
houses, I see, are consigned to you. I will pay you $2,000 now on the
freight, and before they are all taken off of the ship, I will pay you
the balance. He said, take them all off, and pay the balance at your
convenience (we were acquainted and had come up on the same steamer, and
played whist together). It cost me $800 to get them ashore. There were
no wharves then. They had to be taken ashore on lighters. I expected my
brig down from Stockton soon, with $2,000 freight money, so I was out of
the woods financially for the present. I then made arrangement with the
colonel to have them landed on the North Beach on land owned by him,
where I could retail out my other six houses, which I had to sell, when
I got a proper price for them. We formed a copartnership. I was to take
one of my smallest houses, and have it erected there, to be used for an
office, and to use the grounds as a lumber yard to sell on commission,
and as a place for storage, which was very scarce then. There were quite
a number who had taken the liberty of piling lumber and other articles
on it, using it as public ground. I took formal possession of it in the
name of Colonel Stevenson, and gave notice to the different parties that
if they did not remove their materials from the premises in ten days
they would be charged so much for storage. Some removed, and others did
not. I recollect the German house that did not remove it in thirty days
after the ten days of notice. It was a wealthy house, and I handed them
a bill of $250 for storage, at which they demurred very seriously,
questioning our title; but they paid it. When I went out to the ship to
see about taking my houses off, I met the first mate, whom I got
acquainted with in New York. I told him I thought the ship had been
lost; that all the old tugs of ships had got in ahead of them. He said
to me, I have had the worst time I ever had in my life. I have had to
carry that old man on my shoulders (referring to the captain) all the
way. Whenever we had a good breeze and sails were all full, he would
come on deck and order shorten sail to check our speed, or we might have
been here a month sooner. That told the whole story. I saw them take
freight, in my presence, when they were offered $1.50 per foot, when
they told me there was no room for the other half of my houses to go on
the ship, when I had a legal contract with them at sixty cents per foot.
My freight alone would have made a difference of two or three thousand
dollars by excluding it and taking the other in at the difference in the
price of it. There is no doubt they served many other shippers and put
their goods on other vessels, and kept theirs back until the other
ships would get to San Francisco ahead of them, so that they could
deliver the freight according to their bills of lading on the arrival of
the _Prince de Joinville_. That was why my speculation was ruined by
their dishonesty. Instead of being the fastest ship, it was a fraud, a
decoy, a dead trap on those who were unfortunate enough to ship by it.
When I saw the captain he was very humble. He had all kinds of apologies
to make, and invited me to go to China with him. I could have the best
state-room on his ship. It should not cost me a dollar. I could go
around the world with him. I saw that my speculation was ruined by their
dishonesty, and there was no remedy, and, like all human events, that
ended it, and I had to abandon my Sandwich Island expedition and throw
my anticipated fortune from it to the winds. Mr. Meighs, the one who
failed and ran away to Chili, and built the railroad in that country
from Valparaiso to its capital, and then organized a company and
constructed railroads in Peru, had a lumber yard side of me. I sold,
after a while, my other six houses, one at a time, retailing them out,
and, by careful management, just succeeded in saving my original
capital.
I was satisfied with San Francisco, with my interest in the lumber
yards, and with my partnership with Colonel Stevenson on the North
Beach. My interest in my brig, when it came down, and my prospective
interest in what was to be the city of Toulom, and my associations with
Mr. R., who was building the first brewery on the Pacific, which I was
backing up with my indorsement, and I was to have one-third interest
when it was completed, if I wanted it, at first cost, looked like a very
favorable investment for me at that time. I was living an active and
enterprising life, with bright hopes of future fortune. One morning when
I went down to the North Beach I found there had been a house erected on
our land in the night. I, of course, informed the colonel at once. He
informed me it was a man by the name of Colton, who pretended to have a
title under what he called the "Colton Grant," and that it was bogus,
and that he had the building erected to try and force his title. The
colonel said he would see the judge of the court in the city, and get an
order for its removal. In about two hours he sent a messenger with an
order from the judge authorizing us to remove it. He instructed me to
employ all the men that were necessary, and have the material removed
from the premises and he would pay the bill, which I did, and our title
was not disputed after that.
I had never been on a trip to Stockton, and I had chartered the freight
capacity of the brig to a man for $1,800. He was to put in it all the
freight he chose to. I thought it would not be for his interest to
overload it. If the vessel sunk there was no insurance--his cargo would
be a total loss. I had reserved the deck and the passenger room. The
conditions of the charter were that the freight was to be delivered in
Stockton by a certain date or I was to forfeit the $1,800. The freight
was aboard; he had loaded the vessel deeper than I had expected. I had a
number of passengers at $15 each. They were to furnish their own
provisions, but to have the privileges of the cooking stove on deck. The
vessel was anchored out in the bay, to sail at 2 P.M., when the tide was
most favorable. I had a new chain for the anchor, and the captain said
he wanted a kedge anchor for safety, so I ordered one from McCondery &
Co., for $35, on condition that, without fail, they would have it on
board before 2 P.M. We were all on board by 1 o'clock, waiting for the
favorable tide, to start. At 1:30 no anchor and the bay was very rough.
The captain said it would not come, they would not venture out in that
sea in a small boat. I said it would be there certain, I knew my man.
Sure enough, in a few moments we could just see a boat in the distance,
two men rowing and one guiding the rudder. They came alongside and we
had the anchor aboard in five minutes. In the stern was Mr. Watson, one
of the firm. He said he was afraid to trust his men in that sea for fear
they would fail to deliver it. The profit on it to them was only $3.50,
and it was a very wealthy firm, but they had pledged their word to me
that they would have it there at that time. (Would that there were more
of such honorable men.) We hoisted anchor, the tide in our favor and a
stiff breeze blowing. We passed out of the bay of San Francisco into the
bay of Los Angles, and crossed that into the Straits of Benica, which is
four miles long and connects with Suisan bay. The Straits of Benica was
a perfectly safe anchorage. It was approaching night, and blowing almost
a gale. I was in hopes and expected that the captain would come to
anchor in the straits and wait until morning before venturing out into
the Suisan bay, which was twenty miles across to the mouth of the San
Joaquin river, where we were bound. The bay was almost like the open
sea; you could get out of sight of land. I think he would have come to
anchor if I, the owner, had not been on board, and had not urged upon
him the importance of having the vessel in Stockton in time. As he was
the captain I felt sensitive about interfering with his business, and
had hoped and expected, all the way through the straits, that he would
come to anchor, and not undertake to cross the bay that night. Darkness
was setting in, but he did not come to anchor. The gale increased to a
hurricane; all sails were taken in, and we were scudding under bare
poles, and had a lantern hung up in the rigging. The captain came to me
and said, loaded as we were, we could not live in that gale; he would
have to seek a place to anchor on the side of the bay. I said to him, he
was the captain. The line was thrown out every few minutes. At last we
found sounding, and the anchor was cast. We had been there but a short
time before another vessel, more than twice as large as ours, came aside
of us, with a heavy deck-load of lumber, and got entangled in our anchor
chain, and kept drawing us nearer to them. If they had struck our vessel
we knew we were lost. They would have sunk us at once. Seven times they
came down on us and each time, by superhuman efforts, we warded the
blow, all hands and passengers doing their best, fully realizing the
danger they were in. It seems to me that I hear now the oaths of the
captain of the other vessel rising above the sounds of the terrific
hurricane as he was ordering his men, for they, too, were in danger if
they collided with us. Of course, he was on the bare poles. As he came
on us the eighth time they hoisted their jib sail. As the wind struck
it, it seemed to lift their vessel out of the water, and, thank God, we
were freed from it. It was forty-five years ago, and, as I write, it
all lives before me as visible as if it were yesterday. The captain of
the other vessel had seen our light, and, supposing we were in the right
channel, had followed us. We had escaped what seemed almost certain
death, but were not out of danger. Our new good chain was attached to
our bad chain, and the captain had let out all our chain to free us from
the other vessel, so we were actually hanging by our bad chain in the
open roadstead, not in the protection of a harbor, and liable to drag
our anchor or break our chain and be wrecked; but we could do nothing
more than submit to our fate. I thought I would get into my berth and
try and get to sleep, and, if I found myself alive in the morning, we
might be saved. I did sleep, and when I awoke it was daylight. The gale
was subsiding. We had dragged our anchor. The bow of our brig was very
sharp; the banks were soft mud, and we had struck it with such force
that we were wedged in. The tide was low and we were almost out of
water. We fortunately had struck the land with our bow, and that was
what saved us. If we had struck with the side of the vessel we would
have been wrecked. So, ever since we had been freed from the other
vessel, we had been in safety and did not know it. We waited for the
tide to rise and then got our kedge anchor out and pulled the vessel out
off the bank as the tide rose. The sea was very rough, but the gale had
subsided, and by 11 o'clock we were entering the mouth of the San
Joaquin river in safety. It was forty miles up the river to Stockton.
The river was in a valley of Tullieries. The land seemed to be in the
course of formation. There was but one tree between the mouth and
Stockton, a willow, called the Lone Tree. The only place on its banks
where the soil had formed solid enough to produce one, surrounded by
hills at that season of the year, covered with beautiful wild flowers.
The scenery was magnificent. As the river curved we could see the white
sails of other vessels. They looked as if they were in a field. You
could not see the water at a little distance, the river being narrow. We
could almost jump from our deck to the banks. We felt in perfect safety.
Contrasting that with the night before in that terrible hurricane and in
the death struggles for our lives, it produced a supreme feeling of
ethereal ideal happiness that this earth seemed almost a Paradise. The
captain informed me that there was one place on the river where we might
have to anchor. It was called the Devil's Elbow. There was a sharp turn
in the river and the current was rapid, and we might have to pull the
vessel around it; but sometimes, if it was favorable, he could sail
around it, and if done successfully, then the vessels that had come to
anchor could find no fault; otherwise you had to come to behind the
others and take your turn. When we were coming to it, he was at the helm
and I at his side, to see what was the best to do. As we approached, we
saw several vessels had come to for the purpose of pulling around. The
last was a large vessel that the captain said could never get around. If
we anchored behind it we might not be able to deliver our freight
according to the charter. We had put an English sailor in the hold to
let the anchor go, in case we did not succeed, if we gave him the signal
to do so. As we came to the place with all sails set, there was a breeze
sprung up, filling all the sails. I said to the captain, let her go. As
we passed the vessels that had come to anchor there was a howling and
yelling from them of derision and anger at us for going by them. Just as
we got two-thirds of the way around, the sailor in the hold let the
anchor go without orders. He got frightened. If he had not, we would
have made it successfully. As it was, we got ahead of all the other
vessels, and got to Stockton in ample time. The next morning there was a
drove of mules at the side of the brig, and the cargo was being
discharged and packed on their backs to be taken to the mining camps, as
there were no good roads there in those early days. About all the grain
and flour came from Valparaiso and Chili, put up very nicely in fifty
and one hundred pound sacks, so it was easy to handle. As soon as all
the mules were packed, the head mule, who had on a bell fastened around
his neck, which rang as he went, was started first, and all the rest, in
single file, followed him, and they were going for the different mining
camps in the interior. In two or three days we were unloaded, and we
were prepared to return. The freight money was paid to me in gold, at
$16 per ounce in full, all being satisfactory to the shipper. I had
delivered it within the time specified. One of the passengers who came
up with me, a tailor, from Salem, Mass., asked me if I would not give
him a free passage back on the vessel to San Francisco; that he wanted
to try to get home; he was discouraged. I said to him you have traveled
eighteen thousand miles to get to the gold mines, and now you are within
half a day of them and want to go home without trying your fortune. If
you do go, you will never forgive yourself, but go to the mines and try
your luck; then, if you are discouraged and want to go back, I will give
you a free passage, as we have no passengers on our return trip.