had to be left, so they returned. Then the captain received notice to leave in half an hour or the guns of the fort would open fire on us. It was a bright moonlight night. The fort was on a high knoll just above us, and could have blown us out of the water. So we thought discretion was the better part of valor, and we had to leave. The laws of nations were on their side. We were from an infected port, Panama, where cholera prevailed.

On board the steamer were some men of prominence. W.F. McCondery, from Boston, a retired East India sea captain, a man of wealth, who had been out of business for three years and craved for a more exciting life; who started the largest commission-house in San Francisco, and had consigned to him about all the shipments from Boston, and likewise the Prince de Joinville with my houses; Mr. G., from Liverpool, an Englishman, who had about all the consignments from that city; Rothschild's nephew, who had represented that house as a banker in Valparaiso, Chili, was going to establish a branch of those great bankers' house in San Francisco; Judge Terry, from Louisiana, who had the reputation at that time of being a dead shot with a pistol, who afterward challenged United States Senator Broderick to fight a duel, from political influences, and killed him, and some years afterward was assassinated himself from a disagreement with parties about a lawsuit. We came opposite Mazland at the mouth of the Gulf of California, and took on board some passengers and freight.

The next incident in our voyage was when we came in sight of San Diego, California, and saw the American flag floating from the flag staff. There was an instantaneous shout went up from every American on board. We were once more to be under its protection in our own country.

Love of country, mystic fire from heaven,
To light our race up to stateliest heights 'tis given.

We were entering the Golden Gate. It was but four miles to the harbor where we cast anchor, opposite the city of San Francisco, which was the goal of our hopes for so long a time, and which was about to be realized; which was also the objective point from almost every part of the world where adventurers are seeking to get. We had come three thousand, five hundred miles since we left Panama. We engaged a row-boat to take us ashore. My friend attended to getting my baggage out of the boat, and went with me to the shore. He had signed no papers, and entered into no bonds not to desert the vessel at San Francisco, as the other sailors had. He was free to do as he pleased.

I had the chills and fever all the way up, from the effects of the Panama fever. My first idea was to get in good quarters, whatever expense, to regain my health. I was informed that there was a good hotel kept by a widow woman on Montgomery street, where we landed. Some of the other passengers were going to stop there. I inquired the terms. They said $5 per day. I thought I would try it for a while. My sleeping-room was a mattress laid on the floor, with muslin partitions to separate us from the next room. The table was very indifferent, no vegetables, which I required, which we lacked on the ship coming up. Being in poor health, I needed them. After being there a few days one of our passengers asked me if I knew what the charges were. I said yes, $5 per day. He said it was more; I had better ask again, which I did. I was informed it was $5 for the room and extra for the meals. I paid my bill and looked out for other quarters. I had brought in my baggage an Indian rubber mattress and pillow which was folded up in a small space and could be blown up with your breath and filled with air, made a soft bed, a pair of new Mackinaw blankets and other things to provide for any contingency, and took my meals at a restaurant, which were numerous, including the Chinese which we often patronized, and found myself satisfactorily quartered. It may not be inappropriate to make some general remarks about the history of California.

Although my subject is strictly on the days of forty-niners, which consisted of about two years from the discovery of the gold, when it was supposed that the future prosperity of the country depended exclusively on the mining interest. How different it has turned out since has nothing to do with my subject. I want to try to paint to the mind of the reader the condition of California at that time, and the views of the pioneers in those days. I am doing it in the form of a personal narrative, as it enables me more distinctly to recall to my mind the events of those days in which I was a participant. Such fluctuations of fortune as then occurred, the world never saw before in the same space of time, and probably never will again, where common labor was $16 per day. There were some very interesting and truthful articles published in the Century magazine two years ago from the pen of the pioneers, but there has been no book published as a standard work for the present and future, and the participants in it are passing away, for it is forty-five years since they occurred. California is three times larger in territory than the State of New York. Its population before the discovery of gold, including Indians and all, was but a few thousand. Cattle could be bought for $1 per head, and all the land they ranged upon thrown in the bargain for nothing. They were killed for their hides, and the meat thrown away, as there was no one to eat it.

A FEW HISTORICAL ITEMS.

San Francisco bay, first discovered the 25th of October, 1769. The first ship that ever entered the harbor was the San Carlos, June, 1775. The mission of Dolores founded by the Jesuit Fathers in 1769. Colonel Jonathan Stevenson arrived at California with one thousand men on the 7th of March, 1847. The treaty of Hidalgo ceding California to the United States by Mexico, officially proclaimed by the president, July 4, 1848. Gold first discovered by Marshall, January 9, 1848. January, 1848, the whole white population of California was fourteen thousand, January, 1849, the population of San Francisco was two thousand. The three most prominent publicmen at the time of my arrival in California were Colonel Freemont, who had conducted an expedition overland; Colonel Stevenson, who came by sea with one thousand men, appointed by William L. Marcy, who was secretary of war during the conflict with Mexico, from whom I had a letter of introduction as a family connection of Governor Marcy, similar to the following letter to Brigadier Major-General P.F. Smith, which was not delivered: