THE GOLDEN GATE.
It is true that flour was worth fifty dollars a barrel, at the mines, and a common spade ten dollars, but when even the poor and degraded Indians of the rancherias[3] could afford the luxuries of life, the cost of necessaries was of little account to men who thought four golden ounces only a fair return for a day's labor.
This is the story of only a few short months,—the preface, as one might say, to the larger history. It was yet too soon for the discovery to be known in the United States, but the time was drawing near when it would be the one all-engrossing topic in every hamlet from Maine to Florida. Meanwhile it spread to all the shores and isles of the Pacific. Dark-visaged Kanakas from the Sandwich Islands, swarthy Peruvians and Chilenos, added their thousands to the already composite character of the population of the land of gold. From the Russian Possessions in the north, from the Sandwich Islands in the midst of the Pacific, the wondrous tale was speeding on to China and the Australian Isles. Then with the autumnal rains the first chapter of this history of marvels was closed for a brief season.
CHINESE LAUNDRYMAN.
Authentic reports of the gold discovery first appeared in the public prints of the Atlantic States in the autumn. In December, President Polk gave Governor Mason's and Consul Larkin's reports to the country. From these sources the story was taken up and multiplied through the myriad channels of public and private intelligence, until the name of California became a household word throughout all the length and breadth of the land. Talismanic word! It was soon to entice a million men from their homes to seek their fortunes among the gulches of the wild Sierra.
Rarely in the history of the world has society been so deeply stirred to its centre. It was like an electric shock that is felt throughout the whole social organization. First there was the numbness of wonder, then the fever of unwonted excitement. How to get to this land of gold, was now the one absorbing question of the hour. Near a thousand leagues of barren plains and desert mountains lay between it and the settled frontier. These could only be crossed after grass had grown in the spring. A still longer ocean journey must be made by crossing the Isthmus of Darien, over the trail struck out by the viceroys when Spain held the keys of the East; or, if the voyage were to be made round Cape Horn, the distance would be more than quadrupled. But the thought of these vast distances to be traversed seemed only to add to the general impatience to surmount them. The temper of the public mind was such that it would bear any thing but delay. Soon ships were fitting out in every port[4] of the Union for Tampico or Vera Cruz, for Chagres, and for the long voyage round Cape Horn. In the seaports nothing was heard but the note of preparation. On the frontier caravans were everywhere forming to go forward with the appearance of the first blade of grass above ground. "Ho for California!" was the cry borne on every breeze that wafted ship after ship out over the wide ocean with her little colony of gold-seekers. "Ho for California!" was the watchword of those who were braving the perils of a winter journey across the Sierras. And "California!" was still the answer of other bands that were wending their way across the Cordilleras, in paths first traced by Cortez and his comrades, to Acapulco, San Blas or Mazatlan on the Pacific. All roads seemed leading to the Golden Gate. El Dorado was found at last.