As it was sunset when we came to anchor, we deferred our landing till the next morning; but one of the owners coming on board brought a large budget of letters, among which there were several for our party. Having devoured them with that intensity of interest that can be understood only by those who have been in similar circumstances, we laid them aside for a more careful perusal, and gathering round the two or three old settlers who had come from the shore, listened with breathless attention, the careless, genteel indifference with which they talked of hundreds, of thousands, and of millions, affecting the imagination far more than the wildest excitement. As the old man says in the play, there is a positive pleasure in simply talking of such big numbers; they fill the mind with such grand and noble ideas.

The next day boats came from the shore in hopes of obtaining passengers.

"How much do you charge?" cried Captain Bill, looking suspiciously down upon the boatman.

"Only one dollar!" he replied, and in a tone that seemed to say that the rates of fare had recently fallen; but our minds had not yet sufficiently expanded to receive this information with the gratitude it deserved. We looked admiringly upon the sturdy knave who dared to speak thus disrespectfully of the almighty dollar, but preferred to wait till we could obtain a passage in one of the boats belonging to the ship. An opportunity soon offered; and in a few minutes we were gliding across the bows of the vessels that lay in denser phalanx near the wharf. On the high yellow bank stood groups of men ragged and miserable. They leered upon us, as we passed, as much as to say, "Now then, here you are! but wait awhile my hearties, till you've been here long enough to find out a thing or two; and then,—"

This, however, was only a subsequent interpretation; at the time, I had no doubt that everybody had his pockets stuffed with gold, and, like enough, a heavy belt around his waist filled with the same precious metal; and the rags and tatters that flaunted so boldly seemed rather to confirm this gratifying supposition.

Strolling, yet that is not the word, buzzing a few hours through the city was enough to fill us brim full of excitement. To repeat the figure already employed, we had descended farther and farther into this worldwide maelstroom, and seemed now each moment about to plunge into the vortex. Round and round, faster and faster, spun the dizzy tide; sure such a devil's dance was never danced before.

Everything was on a monstrous and perverted scale. The apparent simplicity of the means employed was ridiculous compared to the sublime result. It seemed impossible that a wealth greater than the Indies should flow through such a narrow channel;—that such prodigious power should be confined in the one story, wood and canvass houses of that awkward shambling city. It was as marvellous almost, and incredible, as that the genie of the Arabian tale should have shrunk his steeple bulk into the little copper vessel,—or that the more modern genie of steam, which the other so well symbolized, should suffer himself to be penned in any other than walls of iron and brass. Piles of merchandize of every description, bags, barrels, boxes, and bundles, filled the stores to suffocation, and ran over into the street. Fat gouty mittens, bursting with gold dust,—the thumb alone stiff with a hundred dollars,—turned up their round yellow bellies on the rude counters, like a frog in the last stages of the dropsy; while bars and lumps of still more seductive unity nestled on the window seat, or leaned poker-and-shovel-wise against the corners. Pounds and ounces took the place of dollars and cents,—the appearance of one of the latter was sure to provoke a laugh, but the dollar, though a decided parvenu, was gradually working his way into good society. The time had past when a pinch of gold dust was the lowest standard of value, and when, for want of silver, the nobler metal was forced to perform the most menial offices of trade.

Among all this, in the midst of all these symbols of wealth and power, the miner who had called them into being, moved about with an air of sturdy independence, which received a fresh accession every time he squeezed, between his thumb and fingers, the buckskin bag in his breeches' pocket. Little groups assembled at the corners, and in the principal stores, each one striving to surpass the last speaker in his stories of big lumps,—of holes that paid five or ten dollars a bucket,—and of pockets that made the lucky finder rich in a single hour.

There was something very attractive in this use of the word pocket. There was an appropriateness, an harmony about the idea that imposed upon the understanding. There was such a thing, to be sure, as an empty pocket,—but the old grandam earth had lived a great many years,—she had always been a saving sort of a body, and must have hoarded up quite a handsome pennyworth; it would certainly be a fine thing to have the ransacking of her chinks and crannies.

But the gambling-houses presented scenes of yet fiercer excitement. The finest buildings in the city were devoted to this purpose. Wide doors, standing constantly open, admitted the visitor at once into spacious apartments, where, for every hour in the twenty-four, except a short interval in the morning twilight, were heard the chink of gold and silver, and the confused hum of voices. There is no employment so thirsty as gambling; and the large and splendidly appointed bar was the most striking feature in these establishments. Here the fever-and-aguish gamester sought by one fire to put out another; one drank because he was hot, another because he was cold,—this one because he was losing, that because he had gained.

A curious crowd of spectators circled among the little tables, watching, with an interest second only to that of the principal performers, the movements of the game; or gazing boldly, or with modest obliquity of vision, upon the lascivious pictures that hung on the walls. Little boys of ten or twelve called imperiously for brandy smashes, and staked their all on the turn of a card, or the rolling of a ball with hideous nonchalance; while the next moment oaths as big as cannon balls rolled from their hard lips to testify their impish malice or exultation. The simple novice from some New England village, who has never before been farther from home than the nearest town, proud of his first beard, and champing the ends of his moustache between his lips, sidles timidly up to the bar, and calls in a low voice for a glass of lemonade.

"Yes," cries his Mephistopheles, with a patronizing laugh, "and put a stick in it."

"Well," he replies, laughing in his turn, but more feebly than the other, "I guess I will have a stick in it."

Delighted with the puzzling novelty of the phrase, that, without seeming to mean anything, means so much, he soon repeats the experiment, partly to show he is not afraid, and partly from an indescribable, often unconscious pleasure of doing what he would hardly have dared even to think of at home. He thinks of his mother and sisters and aunt Mary, and wonders what they would say, if they saw him in such company and drinking brandy, at a bar! and in a gambling house besides!! The idea of their horror and incredulous wonder is rather pleasing to his selfish vanity; one is very apt to be vain of such loving tender pity. He has learned to put a stick in it; well for him if he does not ere long put in his whole foot.

After several hours thus spent in wandering from one centre of attraction to another, we returned to the ship, weary of excitement, and hoping to find there at least one place free from the general infection. On reaching the deck, however, a hubbub of voices assailed our ears in which every other word seemed to be diggins, holes, lumps, pockets, &c., &c. Other parties had been like ours wandering through the city; each had brought on board its own budget of news, and now poured them out before us in bewildering confusion.

One had a long story to tell of a lump found in the southern mines. The man who told him knew the man who saw the lucky fellow that found it. Most of these stories were in this respect, too much like the final clause of the story of the house that Jack built.

Others were more interested in the price current of different articles. Saleratus was eight dollars a pound, and everybody wondered he had not brought a few barrels; it would have been the easiest thing in the world, and would have made his fortune at once. Salt, on the other hand, which we had all taken care to bring with us, was worth nothing. On hearing this, Charley Bainbridge hastily descended into the cabin, and presently returning with a bag containing some twenty or thirty pounds, plunged his knife into its belly, and triumphantly emptied the salt into the sea.

"What are you doing there?" cried Busby, who had just come aboard.

"Only throwing overboard some salt," returned Charley, with a chuckle, as if he had been performing some very brilliant action.

"Why," replied Busby, staring very hard as if he did not exactly see the humour of the thing; "you might have given it away if you didn't know what else to do with it."

"Oh," said Charley, "'taint worth anything."

"Ain't worth anything!" retorted the other indignantly; "it's worth twenty-five cents a pound, and I call that something."

This turned out to be the fact; and Charley never heard the last of this adventure, though he said he didn't care, the fun was worth the money any day.

Every one vented his delirium in his own fashion. Dan Carpenter, who was one of the worst affected, clasped his hands on the top of his head as if afraid it should fly away like a balloon; but in spite of this precaution he was raised bodily from the deck, and danced up and down for the space of half an hour, striking his heels three times against each other at every spring; when thoroughly exhausted he was dropt with such violence into a campstool, that it gave way, and let him treacherously down on to his back; whereupon Captain Bill advised him to keep steady, and haul in his jib-sheets; and every one gave him a word of counsel and exhortation.

Such being the food of our waking imagination, it is easy to see what stuff our dreams were made of. All day long we talked and thought of nothing but gold,

The mines were now all before us where to choose; but there was no visible Providence for our guide; and among so many conflicting reports, it was difficult to arrive at any fixed conclusion. The southern mines abounded more in lumps and rich deposits, but the gold was distributed more equally in the northern, and the labourer was accordingly more certain of his reward. In each of these grand divisions there was an endless variety of creeks and rivers, every one of which had its advocates, who set forth its advantages to the best of their ability, till the new comer, weary of weighing these opposing probabilities, often rested his decision upon the most trifling coincidence. Twenty dollars a day was said to be the average earned by the miners, but each man's hope told him a far more flattering tale.

Under these circumstances it may seem unaccountable that we should have waited nearly two weeks at San Francisco for our provisions to be unloaded, when, if our calculations were well grounded, we lost so much by the delay. The hope that every day would be the last, and the difficulty of unlearning all at once, that system of pennywise economy in which we had been educated, are the only explanation of this anything but a masterly inactivity.

In the mean time, through the agency of Captain Bill, whose good luck was signally manifest on this occasion, we made the acquaintance of a Mr. Primrose, said by some to be the most scientific miner in California. To a digger of any experience, the word scientific would have indicated nothing but the most besotted ignorance; but, to our Old-World notions, it sounded grand and imposing.

This scientific miner had a machine,—a scientific machine,—a machine such as is used in the gold mines of Virginia, and must of course be equally well adapted to this new territory. The machines had not yet arrived; but the scientific miner assured us that the vessel in which they had been shipped had sailed months before, and was now expected every day. In the meantime he would be happy to show us a drawing, from which we could form a tolerable idea of the mode of operation. We accordingly examined the drawing with great attention; we turned it upside down,—we looked at it straightforward and obliquely,—we looked at it with both eyes, and squinted at it after the most approved fashion with only one,—and finally came to the conclusion that it resembled nothing so much as a patent beehive, and of course must be a very scientific machine indeed.

"But will it work?" we asked the scientific miner.

The scientific miner, who was by the way a tall and rather comely personage, in a white neck-cloth, something between a clergyman and a broker, made no immediate reply, but taking from a table several hemispherical cakes of gold, looking like so many cakes of beeswax, and thereby confirming our notion of the patent beehive, placed them in our hands with a bland smile, and asked if that would do.

"Certainly," we replied, "that would do very well, if we could do it often enough."

"What do you say to once a week?" inquired the scientific miner.

Captain Bill looked at me, and I looked at Captain Bill, with a smile, half of satisfaction, half of incredulity, but made no answer.

The scientific miner noticed this telegraphic communication, and went on with mathematical gravity and precision.

"This gold," said he, "was washed out in a single week by one of these machines now in operation at Mormon Island; and that, too, from earth that had already been through the common rocker. With one of these machines you can make a thousand dollars a week from almost any earth in California, and ten thousand under favourable circumstances."

Having paused a moment, as if to enable us to digest these assertions, the scientific miner went on in a pleasant and confidential manner that was very encouraging.

"You know how it is," said he; "most that come to this country are ignorant mechanics and labourers, that are not fit to be trusted with such things; but with such energy and intelligence as you possess, you cannot help being successful."

At this, we both looked as intelligent as we possibly could; and Captain Bill, gazing respectfully, almost fearfully, at the drawing, asked the scientific miner how many men were required to work the machine; to which he replied that four could work it when everything was handy, but five or even six might sometimes be necessary. The price was one thousand dollars, on which a short credit would be allowed; but as only three hundred machines were expected in the first vessel, it would be necessary to decide without any great delay. Most of these were already engaged, but he thought he could manage to reserve one for us.

As soon as we got into the open air our enthusiasm, which we had prudently restrained in presence of the scientific miner, at once burst forth.

"Keep cool, boys, keep cool," cried Captain Bill, slapping his thigh, as his manner was, his broad, good-humoured face shining like a pewter platter, "steady your helm and haul in your jib-sheets."

"Look here, Bill!" I began, with a look intended to repress all such unseasonable mirth, "I'll tell you what we'll do. A thousand dollars is a good deal, I know, to give for a machine; but what of that? we can pay for it in a week, and all we make after that will be clear profit."

"Si," said Captain Bill.

"Well, then, if we find it work, you know, we'll just send down and order three more, one for each of us; and then, all we'll have to do will be to oversee the workmen, and attend to the amalgamating process."

"Si,—si,—si," said Captain Bill, once to each of the three rockers, but slowly, and at long intervals, as the magnificence of the idea gradually insinuated itself into his mind, like a boa-constrictor gorging a buffalo; and he already saw himself sitting lordly on a stone, engaged in the agreeable occupation of reckoning his gains, and keeping a sharp lookout on the poor fellows that were toiling for him at their miserable pittance of eight dollars a day, simply because they hadn't a scientific machine too; "but I say; this is one of the machines you read of, isn't it."

"Taking the very lowest calculation," I continued, striving to quench his fervour by my cool, business-like manner, "that 'ill be a thousand dollars apiece a week; or we may as well make it twelve hundred while we are about it, so as to cover all expenses; and, at that rate, I think I could be content to stay in the mines a year."

"Yes, yes," cried the Captain, now at last driven to the use of his own vernacular, "so could I."

"But," said I, with inexorable coolness, "we must be cautious—very cautious. It won't do to be in too much of a hurry. We'll wait and see the machine at Mormon Island, and then we shall know what we know."

"Mr. Primrose seems a very clever sort of a man," returned Bill, "but, after all, it's the lumps that does the business."

Number Four had already been to see the scientific miner, but neither he nor Tertium were aware of the extent of their good fortune; and now Captain Bill taking them, as was his wont, mysteriously aside, undertook to enlighten them. He led them along softly, step by step, touching briefly on the machine, the chief merit of which was that we knew so little about it,—descanting at some length on the honesty and uprightness of the scientific miner, of which we knew still less,—coming down with ever-increasing emphasis on the lumps,—and finally, seeing them now prepared to receive it, winding up with a grand flourish on the twelve hundred a week.

The others listened attentively, but Tertium, who was always a horrible fellow for doubting, was still incredulous.

"Take him to see the lumps," I suggested, somewhat indignantly, for I must confess I felt hurt at his want of scientific ardour, "for, as you say, it is the lumps that does the business."

And indeed there was no getting over the lumps,—they were most weighty arguments, stubborn facts, addressing themselves to sight and touch with a silent eloquence no words could equal. Tertium saw them, and hesitated; he lifted them, and was convinced. Still, we determined to proceed with the utmost caution; and, for my part, I believe I derived almost as much satisfaction from the contemplation of my own superior wisdom, as from gloating over the fifty thousand that only waited my arrival to fall into my hands. We were careful to say nothing of our discovery to our less fortunate companions, for fear they should go at once and buy up every one of the thousand machines, leaving us, when too late, to lament our foolish procrastination.