I have already given some hints of our rude geographical and geological knowledge of California. The rivers there occupied a very prominent position. They were broad, placid streams, flowing gently between green banks. Several parties in the ship were now at work painting and enlarging the boats they had brought with them for the purpose of ascending these favourable rivers. They talked, with the quiet complacency of superior wisdom, of sailing along from point to point; searching out the richest portions—now shooting a fat buck, as he stooped to quench his thirst—now digging out a peck of nuggets like so many clams—now gliding through the unbroken forest—and anon shooting out into the sun in front of some little encampment of miners—till, having filled the boat with gold, they would throw overboard all their tools, and, with colours flying and guns firing, drop down the river to the bay, and return home.
It was, indeed, a most seductive picture, glowing like an Eastern tale, or the stories of those old buccaneers rifling a Spanish galleon—how the word seems to roll in riches—and aroused our desires to go a gold hunting in the same privateering fashion. Some one suggested that there might be steamboats or schooners on the rivers, that would carry us up as far as we wished to go; but this idea met with little encouragement from any one, and was scouted by all the boat-builders with the highest indignation.
Another subject of nearly equal interest was the great variety of gold-washers, from which we had to make a selection. One party brought out a heavy iron tub, as big as a cartwheel, and exhibited its mode of operation with a ludicrous mixture of doubt and complacency, as if they were afraid of it themselves. It worked admirably when there was nothing in it except a small quantity of sand and shot; and then, it was so very heavy; surely no one would have made anything so clumsy, unless for certain advantages not possessed by a simpler construction. But the name was still more imposing, and was evidently the cunning device of one who had no faith in Shakspeare. "The patent centrifugal gold-washer and California chrysolite," stamped in honest iron letters into the very substance of the machine; could anything be more satisfactory? On landing at San Francisco, we found the beach strewed with similar contrivances, that we could have bought "as cheap as stinking mackerel."
We had expected to celebrate the 4th of July in San Francisco; but the day came, and found us still south of the equator. Not to lose entirely, however, the benefit of the occasion, we determined to show ourselves as patriotic and as independent as our unfavourable circumstances would allow. In the morning there was the usual military parade, but on a scale of unusual magnificence. Charley Bainbridge arrayed himself, as the law directs, in knapsack and cartouch box; and shouldering a rusty musket, marched with measured step several times round the ship; looking, all the while, over both shoulders to see the admiring crowd that followed at his heels.
He included in his single person all the varied pomp of captain, lieutenant, private, and musicians; his whistling was indeed extraordinary, and only to be surpassed by that now classic Ethiop who used to keep a barber's pole, so it was said, just out of the Bowery, and was wont to entertain his customers by whistling two tunes at once, one out of each corner of his mouth.
Like the Irishman who surrounded his enemy, or Kehama doing battle with the king of hell, he seemed to multiply himself for the occasion. He walked
Forth without more train
Accompanied than with his own complete
Perfections; in himself was all his state,
More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits
On princes, when their rich retinue long,
Of horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold,
Dazzles the crowd, and sets them all agape.
"He carried arms, and he presented arms,—he faced to the left, he faced to the right, and he faced to the right-about;" "he wheeled forward, and he wheeled backward, and he wheeled into echelon—he marched and he counter-marched, by grand divisions, by simple divisions, and by subdivisions—by platoons, by sections, and by files—in quick time, in slow time, and in no time at all; till having gone through all the evolutions of two great armies, including the eighteen manœuvres of Dundas," and charged bayonets with signal success upon an unlucky dog that had dared to bark at him, though as his owner alleged in excuse, not as captain but as private, he dismissed his company, and we all sat down to dinner.
By clubbing together our scanty resources, we succeeded in getting up quite a tolerable repast. True, our meats were something old,—our peas and green corn could hardly be distinguished from each other, except by sight,—and our patriotism, too, was getting a little musty; but our wine was sufficiently new to make amends, and we were none of us disposed to be hypercritical. Toasts were given as usual; but, though they were received with shouts of laughter, none, that I remember, would bear repeating. They would suffer by this preserving process even more than the meats and vegetables that accompanied them. Lewis, who had not been among us long enough to become imbued with the prevailing spirit of discontent, offered, for his sentiment, a wish that we might all find ourselves, on the succeeding anniversary, again assembled on board the Leucothea, each one with his pile. This toast was received with a wonderful degree of coolness, considering the final clause; but not even that could reconcile us to the idea of repeating such a voyage in such an ill-omened craft—that pill required more gilding.
But alas for the hopes that mocked us! and of which his words were but a feeble exponent. Just in proportion to their brilliancy, was their vanity; as the soap-bubble becomes the brighter the more it is attenuated. The succeeding anniversary came, and found not a few of our number in the grave; while a still larger proportion, wasted by toil and sickness, and harassed by disappointment, cursed the day that they had ever heard of California.