CHAPTER I.
When I inform the reader that I have scarcely dipped pen in ink for six years save to unravel the mysteries of a Treasury voucher; that I have lived chiefly among Indians, disbursing agents, and officers of the customs; that I now sit writing in the attic of a German villa more than eight thousand miles from the scene of my adventures, without note or memorandum of any kind to refresh my memory, he will be prepared to make reasonable allowance for such a loose, rambling, and disjointed narrative as an ex-inspector general can be expected to write under such adverse circumstances. If there be inconveniences in being hanged, as the gentle Elia has attempted to prove, so likewise are there inconveniences in being decapitated; for surely a man deprived of the casket which nature has given him as a receptacle for his brains is no better off than one with a broken neck. But it is not my present purpose to enter into an analysis of this portion of my experience; nor do I make these references to official life by way of excuse for any rustiness of intellect that may be perceptible in my narrative, but rather in mitigation of those unconscious violations of truth and marvelous flights of fancy which may naturally result from long experience in government affairs.
Ever since 1849, when I first trod the shores of California, the citizens of that Land of Promise have been subject to periodical excitements, the extent and variety of which can find no parallel in any other state of the Union. To enumerate these in chronological detail would be a difficult task, nor is it necessary to my purpose. The destruction of towns by flood and fire; the uprisings and downfallings of vigilance committees; the breaking of banking-houses and pecuniary ruin of thousands; the political wars, senatorial tournaments, duels, and personal affrays; the prison and bulkhead schemes; the extraordinary ovations to the living and the dead, and innumerable other excitements, have been too frequently detailed, and have elicited too much comment from the Atlantic press not to be still in the memory of the public.
But, numerous as these agitations have been, and prejudicial as some of them must long continue to be to the reputation of the state, they can bear no comparison in point of extent and general interest to the mining excitements which from time to time have convulsed the whole Pacific coast, from Puget's Sound to San Diego. In these there can be no occasion for party animosity; they are confined to no political or sectional clique; all the industrial classes are interested, and in a manner, too, affecting, either directly or incidentally, their very means of subsistence. The country abounds in mineral wealth, and the merchant, the banker, the shipper, the mechanic, the laborer, are all, to some extent, dependent upon its development. Even the gentleman of elegant leisure, vulgarly known as the "Bummer"—and there are many in California—is occasionally driven by visions of cocktail and cigar-money to doff his "stove-pipe," and exchange his gold-mounted cane for a pick or a shovel. The axiom has been well established by an eminent English writer that "every man wants a thousand pounds." It seems, indeed, to be a chronic and constitutional want, as well in California as in less favored countries.
THE BUMMER.
Few of the early residents of the state can have forgotten the Gold Bluff excitement of '52, when, by all accounts, old Ocean himself turned miner, and washed up cartloads of gold on the beach above Trinidad. It was represented, and generally believed, that any enterprising man could take his hat and a wheelbarrow, and in half an hour gather up gold enough to last him for life. I have reason to suspect that, of the thousands who went there, many will long remember their experience with emotions, if pleasant, "yet mournful to the soul."
GOING TO KERN RIVER.
The Kern River excitement threatened for a time to depopulate the northern portion of the state. The stages from Marysville and Sacramento were crowded day after day, and new lines were established from Los Angeles, Stockton, San José, and various other points; but such was the pressure of travel in search of this grand depository, in which it was represented the main wealth of the world had been treasured by a beneficent Providence, that thousands were compelled to go on foot, and carry their blankets and provisions on their backs. From Stockton to the mining district, a distance of more than three hundred miles, the plains of the San Joaquin were literally speckled with "honest miners." It is a notable fact, that of those who went in stages, the majority returned on foot; and of those who trusted originally to shoe-leather, many had to walk back on their natural soles, or depend on sackcloth or charity.
RETURNING FROM THE KERN RIVER.
After the Kern River Exchequer had been exhausted, the public were congratulated by the press throughout the state upon the effectual check now put upon these ruinous and extravagant excitements. The enterprising miners who had been tempted to abandon good claims in search of better had undergone a species of purging which would allay any irritation of the mucous membrane for some time. What they had lost in money they had gained in experience. They would henceforth turn a deaf ear to interested representations, and not be dazzled by visions of sudden wealth conjured up by monte-dealers, travelers, and horse-jockeys. They were, on the whole, wiser if not happier men. Nor would the lesson be lost to the merchants and capitalists who had scattered their goods and their funds over the picturesque heights of the Sierra Nevada. And even the gentlemen of elegant leisure, who had gone off so suddenly in search of small change for liquors and cigars, could now recuperate their exhausted energies at the free lunch establishments of San Francisco, or, if too far gone in seed for that, they could regenerate their muscular system by some wholesome exercise in the old diggings, where there was not so much gold perhaps as at Kern River, but where it could be got at more easily.
HO! FOR FRAZER RIVER.
Scarcely had the reverberation caused by the bursting of the Kern River bubble died away, and fortune again smiled upon the ruined multitudes, when a faint cry was heard from afar—first low and uncertain, like a mysterious whisper, then full and sonorous, like the boom of glad tidings from the mouth of a cannon, the inspiring cry of Frazer River! Here was gold sure enough! a river of gold! a country that dazzled the eyes with its glitter of gold! There was no deception about it this time. New Caledonia was the land of Ophir. True, it was in the British possessions, but what of that? The people of California would develop the British possessions. Had our claim to 54° 40´ been insisted upon, this immense treasure would now have been within our own boundaries; but no matter—it was ours by right of proximity. The problem of Solomon's Temple was now solved. Travelers, from Marco Polo down to the present era, who had attempted to find the true land of Ophir, had signally failed; but here it was, the exact locality, beyond peradventure. For where else in the world could the river-beds, creeks, and cañons be lined with gold? Where else could the honest miner "pan out" $100 per day every day in the year? But if any who had been rendered incredulous by former excitements still doubted, they could no longer discredit the statements that were brought down by every steamer, accompanied by positive and palpable specimens of the ore, and by the assurances of captains, pursers, mates, cooks, and waiters, that Frazer River was the country. To be sure, it was afterward hinted that the best part of the gold brought down from Frazer had made the round voyage from San Francisco; but I consider this a gross and unwarranted imputation upon the integrity of steam-boat owners, captains, and speculators. Did not the famous Commodore Wright take the matter in hand; put his best steamers on the route; hoist his banners and placards in every direction, and give every man a chance of testing the question in person? This was establishing the existence of immense mineral wealth in that region upon a firm and practical basis. No man of judgment and experience, like the commodore, would undertake to run his steamers on "the baseless fabric of a vision." The cheapness and variety of his rates afforded every man an opportunity of making a fortune. For thirty, twenty, and even fifteen dollars, the ambitious aspirant for Frazer could be landed at Victoria.
I will not now undertake to give a detail of that memorable excitement; how the stages, north, south, east, and, I had almost said, west, were crowded day and night with scores upon scores of sturdy adventurers; how farms were abandoned and crops lost for want of hands to work them; how rich claims in the old diggings were given away for a song; how the wharves of San Francisco groaned under the pressure of the human freight delivered upon them on every arrival of the Sacramento and Stockton boats; how it was often impracticable to get through the streets in that vicinity owing to the crowds gathered around the "runners," who cried aloud the merits and demerits of the rival steamers; and, strangest of all, how the head and front of the Frazerites were the very men who had enjoyed such pleasant experience at Gold Bluff, Kern River, and other places famous in the history of California. No sensible man could doubt the richness of Frazer River when these veterans became leaders, and called upon the masses to follow. They were not a class of men likely to be deceived—they knew the signs of the times. And, in addition to all this, who could resist the judgment and experience of Commodore Wright, a man who had made an independent fortune in the steam-boat business? Who could be deaf when assayers, bankers, jobbers, and speculators cried aloud that it was all true?
Well, I am not going to moralize. Mr. Nugent was appointed a commissioner, on the part of the United States, to settle the various difficulties which had grown up between the miners and Governor Douglass. He arrived at Victoria in time to perform signal service to his fellow-citizens; that is to say, he found many of them in a state of starvation, and sent them back to California at public expense. Frazer River, always too high for mining purposes, could not be prevailed upon to subside. Its banks were not banks of issue, nor were its beds stuffed with the feathers of the Golden Goose. Had it not been for this turn of affairs, it is difficult to say what would have been the result. The British Lion had been slumbering undisturbed at Victoria for half a century, and was very much astonished, upon waking up, to find thirty thousand semi-barbarous Californians scattered broadcast over the British possessions. Governor Douglass issued manifestoes in vain. He evidently thought it no joke. The subject eventually became a matter of diplomatic correspondence, in which much ink was shed, but fortunately no blood, although the subsequent seizure of San Juan by General Harney came very near producing that result.
RETURNED FROM FRAZER RIVER.
The steamers, in due course of time, began to return crowded with enterprising miners, who still believed there was gold there if the river would only fall. But generosity dictates that I should say no more on this point. It is enough to add, that the time arrived when it became a matter of personal offense to ask any spirited gentleman if he had been to Frazer River.
There was now, of course, an end to all mining excitements. It could never again happen that such an imposition could be practiced upon public credulity. In the whole state there was not another sheep that could be gulled by the cry of wolf. Business would now resume its steady and legitimate course. Property would cease to fluctuate in value. Every branch of industry would become fixed upon a permanent and reliable basis. All these excitements were the natural results of the daring and enterprising character of the people. But now, having worked off their superabundant steam, they would be prepared to go ahead systematically, and develop those resources which they had hitherto neglected. It was a course of medical effervescence highly beneficial to the body politic. All morbid appetite for sudden wealth was now gone forever.
But softly, good friends! What rumor is this? Whence come these silvery strains that are wafted to our ears from the passes of the Sierra Nevada? What dulcet Æolian harmonies—what divine, enchanting ravishment is it
"That with these raptures moves the vocal air?"
As I live, it is a cry of Silver! Silver in Washoe! Not gold now, you silly men of Gold Bluff; you Kern Riverites; you daring explorers of British Columbia! But Silver—solid, pure Silver! Beds of it ten thousand feet deep! Acres of it! miles of it! hundreds of millions of dollars poking their backs up out of the earth ready to be pocketed!
Do you speak of the mines of Potosi or Golconda? Do you dare to quote the learned Baron Von Tschudi on South America and Mexico? Do you refer me to the ransom of Atahualpa, the unfortunate Inca, in the days of Pizarro? Nothing at all, I assure you, to the silver mines of Washoe! "Sir," said my informant to me, in strict confidence, no later than this morning, "you may rely upon it, for I am personally acquainted with a brother of the gentleman whose most intimate friend saw the man whose partner has just come over the mountains, and he says there never was the like on the face of the earth! The ledges are ten thousand feet deep—solid masses of silver. Let us be off! Now is the time! A pack-mule, pick and shovel, hammer and frying-pan will do. You need nothing more. Hurrah for Washoe!"
Kind and sympathizing reader, imagine a man who for six years had faithfully served his government and his country; who had never, if he knew himself intimately, embezzled a dollar of the public funds; who had resisted the seductive influences of Gold Bluff, Kern, and Frazer Rivers from the purest motives of patriotism; who scorned to abandon his post in search of filthy lucre—imagine such a personage cut short in his official career, and suddenly bereft of his per diem by a formal and sarcastic note of three lines from head-quarters; then fancy you hear him jingle the last of his federal emoluments in his pocket, and sigh at the ingratitude of republics. Would you not consider him open to any proposition short of murder or highway robbery? Would you be surprised if he accepted an invitation from Mr. Wise, the aeronaut, to take a voyage in a balloon? or the berth of assistant manager in a diving-bell? or joined the first expedition in search of the treasure buried by the Spanish galleon on her voyage to Acapulco in 1578? Then consider his position, as he stands musing upon the mutability of human affairs, when those strange and inspiring cries of Washoe fall upon his ears for the first time, with a realizing sense of their import. Borne on the wings of the wind from the Sierra Nevada; wafted through every street, lane, and alley of San Francisco; whirling around the drinking saloons, eddying over the counters of the banking offices, scattering up the dust among the Front Street merchants, arousing the slumbering inmates of the Custom-house—what man of enterprise could resist it? Washoe! The Comstock lead! The Ophir! The Central—The Billy Choller Companies, and a thousand others, indicating in trumpet-tones the high road to fortune! From the crack of day to the shades of night nothing is heard but Washoe. The steady men of San Francisco are aroused, the men of Front Street, the gunny-bag men, the brokers, the gamblers, the butchers, the bakers, the whisky-dealers, the lawyers, and all. The exception was to find a sane man in the entire city.
HURRAH FOR WASHOE.
No wonder the abstracted personage already referred to was aroused from his gloomy reflections. A friend appealed to him to go to Washoe. The friend was interested there, but could not go himself. It was a matter of incalculable importance. Millions were involved in it. He (the friend) would pay expenses. The business would not occupy a week, and would not interfere with any other business.