March 10th.—At San Francisco this morning a friend took me to see the ‘What Cheer House,’ a very large hotel, supported by gold-miners, where they make up six hundred beds, every lodger having a small room to himself, with marble wash-stand, looking-glass, and dressing-table. Each story shuts off from the next by fireproof doors, and the water is forced to the top of the house, where there are hoses, fire-buckets, and axes enough to fit out a fire-brigade. A large steam-engine is the cook’s assistant, doing everything that hands usually do; it kneads the bread, rolls the dough, drives the roasting gear, grinds coffee, peels apples and potatoes, beats the eggs (twelve hundred dozen a week), washes, irons, dries, and mangles the clothes; heats the water for the bathing-houses, which are perfect in every detail; does all the pumping, and cleans the knives.
Adjoining the dining-room is a well-selected library, general reading-room, and museum, containing a capital collection of stuffed birds, and other useful objects of Natural History. The rate each miner pays is five dollars, equal to 1£. per week: this includes eating and drinking. The house is strictly a temperance one, no fermented liquor being allowed within it.
Wandering about San Francisco would be much more enjoyable, if the hills were less steep, and the wind, which is everlastingly blowing, freighted with fine sand, that finds its way into your very watchcase, could be stilled.
March 11th.—Steaming across the bay in a white steamer called the ‘Eclipse,’ propelled by the largest paddlewheels I ever saw. We are en route to Sacramento, which we reach late at night.
March 12th.—Strolled about. Hardly believe so vast a place can have grown up in ten years. I think I like it better than San Francisco. The streets running east and west are marked by numbers—1st street, 2nd street, and so on; those having a north and south bearing by letter, as—A street, B street, &c. Received a telegram from the Commissioner, who had just reached San Francisco on his return from England, to join him.
Nothing material occurs in my journal until
March 23rd.—I am at the Webber House in Stockton, a very pretty city, built on what the Americans call a slew, or, in other words, a muddy arm of the San Joaquin river. The country round is perfectly flat, but fertile beyond description. To obtain water the inhabitants have only to bore an auger-hole about nine feet in depth, when it bubbles up like a fountain. In nearly every garden is a tiny windmill, employed to irrigate the peach-orchards and general crops. Hear of 700 mules that have just arrived from Salt Lake city.
March 24th.—Drive out in a buggy to the mule ranch. The country very bare of timber, but thickly covered with grass. Every hillock, I observe, is burrowed like a rabbit-warren by the Californian ground-squirrel (Spermophilus Beechyii). I am told that it is next to impossible to drive out or exterminate these most destructive pests; entire fields of young wheat are cleared off by them, as if mowed down; gardens are invaded, and a year’s labour and gain destroyed in a single day. Trapping, shooting, and strychnine have failed to accomplish the work of extinction. Farmers often flood entire districts, ‘to drown out the darned cusses!’ Their habits are strictly diurnal; and pretty lively little fellows they are, scampering off to their holes on the approach of danger, where they sit up on their hind-legs, peering curiously at the intruder. You may come very near now: there is a safe retreat behind, and he knows it. When too close, however, for safety’s sake, the squirrel gives a shrill defiant whistle, like the laugh of a sprite, and dashes into its burrow.
Purchased twenty-one mules, at 150 dollars per head; the others were team-mules, and too large for pack animals. My mules are to remain on the ranch until I have completed my other purchases.
March 25th.—Cross in the stage from Stockton to Sacramento, a distance of about forty miles, through a country fertile in the extreme. Wild flowers, in endless variety of colour, decked the grass-land. The hawthorn, white with blossom, perfumes the air; and the waving green cornfields contrast pleasantly with the foliage of the oaks and chestnuts scattered about in graceful clumps. We change horses at Woodbridge, Fugit Ranch, and Elk Grove, and at four o’clock pull up at the St. George’s Hotel, Sacramento.