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 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, 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 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 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, Yet every incident and scene had its poetic side to him, and, while that phase of his nature did not lead him to exaggeration in prose, it often led him to break into independent poetic effusions. He appears to have long looked upon the Pacific coast as a field of poetry and song, for, before he had any idea of visiting the country, he wrote several poems, and located Most sweetly sang he of the climate, and the prolific gifts of nature in California, and one verse of his “Manuela” contains a very vivid and accurate picture of some of California, as seen by many travellers. “All the air is full of music, for the winter rains are o’er, And the noisy magpies chatter from the budding sycamore; Blithely frisk unnumbered squirrels, over all the grassy slope; Where the airy summits brighten, nimbly leaps the antelope.” In a prophetic strain, which has been so often quoted in that land where “The seaward winds are wailing through Santa Barbara’s pines, And like a sheathless sabre, the far Pacific shines,” he foretold, in “The Pine Forest of Monterey,” what has already happened in that magic land of sunshine, gold, and miraculous progress. “Stately Pines, But few more years around the promontory Your chant will meet the thunders of the sea. No more, a barrier to the encroaching sand Against the surf ye’ll stretch defiant arm, Though with its onset and besieging shock Your firm knees tremble. Never more the wind Shall pipe shrill music through your mossy beards, Nor sunset’s yellow blaze athwart your heads Crown all the hills with gold. Your race is past: The mystic cycle, whose unnoted birth Coeval was with yours, has run its sands, And other footsteps from these changing shores Frighten its haunting Spirit. Men will come To vex your quiet with the din of toil; The smoky volumes of the forge will stain This pure, sweet air; loud keels will ride the sea, Dashing its glittering sapphire into foam; Through all her green caÑadas Spring will seek Her lavish blooms in vain, and clasping ye, O, mournful Pines, within her glowing arms, Will weep soft rains to find ye fallen low.” He portrayed his California experiences in rhyme, when he sang of “The Summer Camp,” and we quote a few lines of it, so appropriate to his departure from San Francisco. “No more of travel, where the flaming sword Of the great sun divides the heavens; no more Of climbing over jutty steeps that swim In driving sea-mists, where the stunted tree Slants inland, mimicking the stress of winds When wind is none; of plain and steaming marsh, Where the dry bulrush crackles in the heat; Of camps by starlight in the columned vault Of sycamores, and the red, dancing fires That build a leafy arch, efface and build, And sink at last, to let the stars peep through; Of caÑons grown with pine, and folded deep In golden mountain-sides; of airy sweeps Of mighty landscape, lying all alone Like some deserted world.” He mentioned the deep impression of ceaseless progress which the change of a few weeks had made in the growth of San Francisco. When he re-entered it, after his short stay in the mountains, he could not recognize the streets, while the inhabitants and their manners had undergone a change still more astonishing. Where there were tents a few days before, now were large buildings of wood, while the log-cabins and Chinese houses had, in many places, given place to structures of brick and stone. Wharves had been built, streets regularly laid out, banks opened, wholesale stores established, lines of steamers running to the various ports along the coast, and up the rivers; while the rude, dirty, careless, rushing multitude had assumed a cleanliness and a gravity, unequal of course to that of an Eastern city, but astonishingly in advance of the previous wildness. Law offices, brokers’ boards, smelting establishments, barber-shops, hotels, bakeries, laundries, and news-stands had all been established On leaving California, about the first of January, 1850, he decided to go down the coast to Mazatlan and thence overland through Mexico. He came to that conclusion after long consultations with his friends, none of whom could or dared accompany him, while all told him of robbers, deserts, impassable streams, and dangerous wild beasts which awaited all travellers in that benighted and trackless country. Mr. Taylor would have enjoyed some thrilling adventures; and the fears of his advisers only made him more decided in his determination to go. So, alone, and with but slight knowledge of the Spanish language, he disembarked at Mazatlan on the Mexican coast, near the CASTLE OF CHAPULTEPEC. His hardships were many, and his fatigue at times almost unbearable; but his love for things new and strange, for the unexplored and unknown, kept him moving perseveringly on through the thickets and ravines of upper Mexico. By great skill and considerable assurance he managed to keep in the good graces of the people he met, and for several days, in the forests and in the villages, he met, with very kind and hospitable treatment. On one occasion, however, he fell among thieves. Before he arrived at the city of Mexico, and while still in the wilderness of the interior of the Mexican highlands, he was suddenly attacked by three Mexican robbers, to whose marauding purposes he could make no resistance, he having placed such reliance upon the good faith of the natives as to carry his pistol without a cartridge in it. The banditti made him dismount and hand over what little money in coin he happened to have, and after taking such blankets and trinkets as they desired, left him with his hands tied behind him, to get on as best he could. Fortunately they did not want his horse, which he had bought in place of the useless mule, and after extricating himself from his bonds by long struggles, he mounted his horse and rode on to Mexico with his drafts for money all intact. He seems to have placed less reliance on the Mexicans, His visit to the Mexican capital was an occasion of great interest to him, and brought up freshly and vividly the story which Prescott has so well told of the Aztecs and the heroic age of Cortez. No scene in Europe is said to combine such extremes of sweetness and grandeur, of light and shade, of valley and hill, of plain and cragged highland, of land and water, of art and nature, as the valley of Mexico. There he saw the evidences of prehistoric civilization, and looked with curiosity and awe upon the towering fortress of Chapultepec, which connects the present with the ages past. However, Mr. Taylor could not stop long in that charming vale, and hastened on over the battle-fields of Scott to Vera Cruz. From Vera Cruz he went by steamer to Mobile, from thence overland to Charleston, S. C., and by way of North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, to New York, where, about the middle of March, he resumed his duties as editor of the “Tribune” with the thought that there he might stay the remainder of his life. |