The next day passengers would be received on the steamer, which was anchored out in the bay, some distance from shore. It was announced that no sick persons could go on the steamer. As I was quite enfeebled from my sickness, and was at my best in the morning, I thought I would make an early start, so as to be sure and be aboard, as they were all to be on board the vessel to sail early the next morning. I started out for a boat to take me out to it with the highest elasticity of feelings, not so much from the prospect of financial success as the idea that if I could get North again my physical health would be restored, and the steamer was going North. It seemed at times that I would have given $1,000 for one good breath of Northern air. As I was going along, some distance ahead of me, sitting at the doors of a doggery, with his head almost between his knees, the picture of despair, was my Washington friend, who waited on my room at the hotel when I first arrived, did me many favors, and got hold of my sympathies. I said to myself, poor fellow, I can do nothing for you. I must not let him see me, so I dodged and passed him. When I got some distance by him my conscience smote me. I will go back and speak to him; so I did. I had advised him a few days previous to go and see some officers of the boat and offer to go up as waiter without pay. I asked him if he had done so, and what luck? He said there was no hope. They told him they had been offered $300 for the privilege of going up as waiter. I then told him I had a ticket. I was going then for a boat to go on board. That his case was desperate, and that desperate cases required desperate remedies; that he had been down twice with the fever, and the next time he would probably die; that he had no friends there nor money; if he would do as I told him I would stand by him and he must have nerve. He said to me: "How can a man have nerve without a dollar in his pocket?" which exclamation has occurred to me many times since. I asked him to hire a boat to get him out to the vessel, and what it would cost. He said $2. I gave him the money and told him to get his baggage. He said he had none. I told him to come about 11 o'clock and go to work among the hands as if he was one of them; that all were new hands and officers, and they would not know the difference. He said that the captain had said if any person was caught on board without a ticket they would be put on shore at the first uninhabited island. I told him I would attend to that in his case. I went on board and got my berth and baggage all in. About 11 o'clock I saw my friend coming over the water making for the vessel. There was considerable confusion on board at the time, passengers constantly arriving, and he was not noticed, and he went to work among the hands as if he had been regularly employed. In a short time the officers were arranging the men in line to pass the baggage, and said to him: "You stand here and help pass it," of course, taking him for one of the men of the boat. In the evening he came and spoke to me. I said all right so far. But in the morning, he said, they are going to examine every person, then they will put me ashore. I said, keep a stiff upper lip. If you get in trouble, come to me.
The next morning the gun fired, the anchor was raised, and we sailed down to Bogota, an island similar to Staten Island in the New York Harbor. The health officers came out. Then my friend trembled and thought the day of judgment had come to him, but the health officers were on board but a short time. No examination of those on board took place. The signal gun for departure was fired. We passed out of the harbor. The bow of our vessel was pointed north, and we felt extremely happy. I said to him, "This vessel is bound for San Francisco, and you are aboard, and will get there as soon as I will." A few days after that the mate was arranging the employment of the men, and when he came to my friend's turn he said to him, "Who employed you? You are not an able-bodied seaman." He made no reply. They could see he was a man of intelligence, and his pale look showed he had been sick. It may have moved the sympathies of the officer, who said to him, "This vessel is crowded with people; it wont do for us to be short of water, and I will put the water in your charge, and you must not let any passenger, or even the steward, have any except according to the regulations, and if you attend to that properly no other services will be required of you." That took him off of the anxious seat and put him on the solid. In all his adversities he never thought of turning back. That commanded my esteem. His attentions to me, when sick, aroused my sympathies for him, which good action on his part saved him. Of one thousand passengers desirous of getting on that steamer, and there was room but for sixty on the day of its departure; his chance looked the most hopeless, being penniless, but he was one of the fortunate ones, while those who had plenty of money were left. It illustrated the old maxim, "Where there is a will there is a way."
Nothing of interest occurred until we got to the port of Acupulco, the largest place on the west coast of Mexico. We were about to enter the harbor when a government boat with officials came out and ordered us to stop. If we proceeded any further there would be "matter trouble" in broken English. There were Americans on shore who had crossed over from Vera Cruz for the purpose of taking this steamer. It would be a month before there would be another one, and then there would be no certainty of their getting aboard of that. The captain held a consultation of the passengers, who all decided to have them come on board. They were our countrymen and we would share our berths with them, although the vessel was then crowded, and some of the passengers volunteered to row ashore with the small boats to bring them aboard, which they did. When they approached the shore there was a company of soldiers waded in the water with pointed guns, forbidding them to approach any nearer. The Americans who were on the bank informed them that the soldiers would fire, and warning them not to approach any nearer, while bewailing their fate that they 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.