The light breeze carried us slowly away - for the first time
for many long months with our faces to the east. But it was
not 'merry' England that filled my juvenile fancies. I
leaned upon the taffrail and watched this lovely land of the
'flowery food' fade slowly from my sight. I had eaten of the
Lotus, and knew no wish but to linger on, to roam no more, to
return no more, to any home that was not Arakeeta's.
This sort of feeling is not very uncommon in early life. And
'out of sight, out of mind,' is also a known experience.
Long before we reached San Fr'isco I was again eager for
adventure.
How magnificent is the bay! One cannot see across it. How
impatient we were to land! Everything new. Bearded dirty
heterogeneous crowds busy in all directions, - some running
up wooden and zinc houses, some paving the streets with
planks, some housing over ships beached for temporary
dwellings. The sandy hills behind the infant town are being
levelled and the foreshore filled up. A 'water surface' of
forty feet square is worth 5,000 dollars. So that here and
there the shop-fronts are ships' broadsides. Already there
is a theatre. But the chief feature is the gambling saloons,
open night and day. These large rooms are always filled with
from 300 to 400 people of every description - from 'judges'
and 'colonels' (every man is one or the other, who is nothing
else) to Parisian cocottes, and escaped convicts of all
nationalities. At one end of the saloon is a bar, at the
other a band. Dozens of tables are ranged around. Monte,
faro, rouge-et-noir, are the games. A large proportion of
the players are diggers in shirt-sleeves and butcher-boots,
belts round their waists for bowie knife and 'five shooters,'
which have to be surrendered on admittance. They come with
their bags of nuggets or 'dust,' which is duly weighed,
stamped, and sealed by officials for the purpose.
1 have still several specimens of the precious metal which I
captured, varying in size from a grain of wheat to a mustard
seed.
The tables win enormously, and so do the ladies of pleasure;
but the winnings of these go back again to the tables. Four
times, while we were here, differences of opinion arose
concerning points of 'honour,' and were summarily decided by
revolvers. Two of the four were subsequently referred to
Judge 'Lynch.'
Wishing to see the 'diggings,' Fred and I went to Sacramento
- about 150 miles up the river of that name. This was but a
pocket edition of San Francisco, or scarcely that. We
therefore moved to Marysville, which, from its vicinity to
the various branches of the Sacramento river, was the chief
depot for the miners of the 'wet diggin's' in Northern
California. Here we were received by a Mr. Massett - a
curious specimen of the waifs and strays that turn up all
over the world in odd places, and whom one would be sure to
find in the moon if ever one went there.
