After spending the evening in his company, I admonished the injured husband—in the event of his meeting with his false partner and friend—to do nothing he might afterwards regret.
Farrell and I then parted; and I saw no more of him before leaving San Francisco.
I sojourned another week in the capital of California; and, having learned enough of its mysteries and miseries, I began to make preparation for my voyage across the Pacific.
An eminent banking firm in London had established an agency in San Francisco; and by it I forwarded to England all the gold I had collected—excepting a few ounces retained for my travelling expenses to Australia.
I found no difficulty in obtaining a passage from San Francisco to the latter place. Gold-diggings had been recently discovered in New South Wales—in Port Philip, as Victoria was then called; and as many people from the colonies wished to return, for their accommodation, numbers of large ships were being “laid on” for Sydney and Melbourne.
There is no class of passenger so profitable as the gold-digger going away from a diggings; and this being a fact, well-known among the captains and owners of ships, there was no scarcity in the supply of vessels then fitting out in the harbours of California.