Deck and port /

by Walter Colton

The Collingwood has offered us no molestation: Admiral Seymour is an officer of great amenity of deportment,—has been several times on board the Congress: he was much impressed with the force of our battery, and says our ship is the most powerful frigate afloat in the world. The Admiral and most of his officers are connected with the English nobility, but assume no airs, and are boon companions wherever met. It has been often stated by American writers that the Admiral intended to raise the English flag in California, and would have done it had we not stolen the march on him. I believe nothing of the kind; the allegation is a mere assumption, unwarranted by a solitary fact. He had no such instructions from the British ministry: what the English might have done, had they been apprized of our designs, is another thing; what they did do, was to watch our movements. When we had harpooned the whale, they left us to make the most of its blubber and bones.

Friday, July 24. Capt. Du Pont left us to-day to take command of the Cyane—a fine ship, well officered and manned. We part with him with much regret; he has been with us in gale and calm, amidst the ice of the Cape and on the burning Line, and cheerfully shared, in his own person, every hardship and peril. His professional knowledge and efficiency, with his social qualities and unblemished character, have won our unmeasured confidence and esteem.

Mr. Livingston, our first lieutenant, succeeds to the command, under an appointment from Commodore Stockton, and combines, with the duties of this post, those of executive officer. His station is one of some difficulty, but he is the better qualified for it by his previous services and thorough knowledge of the crew. Capt. Mervin takes command of the Savannah—a post to which he is entitled by his experience and rank. The officers attached to this frigate are an ornament to the service; there are not wanting individuals among them whose religious example has been felt deep and wide.

Here the publication of my journal must rest; and be resumed in another volume, under the title of “Three Years in California.” But without trenching on the incidents sketched in that volume, I may glance at a few local circumstances which recent events have thrown into remarkable prominency. The geographical features of the country will be described in their proper place; I turn from these to a point which looms up, in the fancy at least, like a headland on which a rosy twilight has poured its golden charm.

The bay of San Francisco resembles a broad inland lake, communicating by a narrow channel with the ocean. This channel, as the tradition of the aborigines runs, was opened by an earthquake which a few centuries since convulsed the continent. The town is built on the south bend of the bay, near its communication with the sea. Its site is a succession of barren sand-hills, tumbled up into every variety of shape. No levelling process, on a scale of any magnitude, has been attempted. The buildings roll up and over these sand ridges like a shoal of porpoises over the swell of a wave, only the fish has much the most order in the disposal of his head and tail. More incongruous combinations in architecture never danced in the dreams of men. Brick warehouses, wooden shanties, sheet-iron huts, and shaking tents, are blended in admirable confusion.

But these grotesque habitations have as much uniformity and sobriety as the habits of those who occupy them. Hazards are made in commercial transactions and projects of speculation, that would throw Wall-street into spasms. I have seen merchants purchase cargoes without having even glanced into the invoice. The conditions of the sale were a hundred per cent. profits to the owner, and costs. In one cargo, when tumbled out, were found twenty thousand dollars in the single article of red cotton handkerchiefs! “I’ll get rid of those among the wild Indians,” said the purchaser, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I’ve a water-lot which I will sell,” cries another. “Which way does it stretch?” inquire half a a dozen. “Right under that craft there,” is the reply. “And what do you ask for it?” “Fifteen thousand dollars.” “I’ll take it.” “Then down with your dust.” So the water-lot, which mortal eyes never yet beheld, changes its owners without changing its fish. “I have two shares in a gold mine,” cries another. “Where are they?” inquire the crowd. “Under the south branch of the Yuba river, which we have almost turned,” is the reply. “And what will you take?” “Fifteen thousand dollars.” “I’ll give ten.” “Take them, stranger.” So the two shares of a possibility of gold under a branch of the Yuba, where the water still rolls rapid and deep, are sold for ten thousand dollars paid down! Is there any thing in the Arabian Nights that surpasses this?

But glance at that large wooden building, which looks as if the winds had shingled it, and the powers of the air pinned its clapboards in a storm. Enter, and you find a great hall filled with tables, and a motley group gathered around each. Some are laying down hundreds and others thousands on the turn of a card. Each has a bag of grain-gold in his hand, which he must double or lose, and is only anxious to reach the table where he can make the experiment. You would advise him at least to purchase a suit of clothes, or repair his old ones, before he loses his all; but what cares he for his outward garb, when piles of the yellow dust swell and glitter in his excited imagination? Down goes his bag of gold—and is lost! But does he look around for a rope or pistol that he may end his ruin? No: the river bank, where he gathered that bag, has more; so he cheers his momentary despondency with a strong glass of brandy, and is off again for the mines. He found the gold by good fortune, and has lost it by bad, and now considers himself about even with the world. Such is the moral effect of gold hunting on a man whose principles are not as fixed and immoveable as the rock. It begins in a lottery and ends in a lottery, where the blanks outnumber the prizes ten to one.

But you are hungry—want a breakfast—turn into a restaurant—call for ham, eggs, and coffee—then your bill—six dollars! Your high boots, which have never seen a brush since you first put them on, have given out: you find a pair that can replace them-they are a tolerable fit, and now what is the price—fifty dollars! Your beard has not felt a razor since you went to the mines—it must come off, and your frizzled hair be clipped. You find a barber: his dull shears hang in the knots of your hair like a sheep-shearer’s in a fleece matted with burrs—his razor he straps on the leg of his boot, and then hauls away—starting at every pull some new fountain of tears. You vow you will let the beard go—but then one side is partly off, and you try the agony again to get the other side something like it; and now what is the charge for this torture—four dollars! Night is approaching, and you must have a place where you can sleep: to inquire for a bed would be as idle as to hunt a pearl in the jungle of a Greenland bear. You look around for the lee of some shanty or tent, and tumble down for the night; but a thousand fleas dispute the premises with you—the contest is hopeless—you tumble out as you tumbled in, and spend the remainder of the night in finding a place not occupied by these aborigines of the soil.

But you are not perhaps a gold-digger, as I had supposed; you are a supercargo, and have a valuable freight, which you wish to land. You have warped your vessel in till her keel rakes, and yet you are several hundred yards off. Some lighter must be found that can skim these shallows; your own boats will not do: after waiting two or three weeks, you get the use of a scow, called a lighter, for which you pay one hundred and fifty dollars a day.

To-morrow you are going to commence unloading, and wake betimes; but find that during the night every soul of your crew has escaped, and put out for the mines. You rush about on shore to find hands, and collect eight or ten loafers, who will assist you for fifteen dollars a day each. Your cargo must be landed, and you close the bargain, though your fresh hands are already half-seas over. The scow is shoved from shore, brought alongside, loaded with goods, which are tumbled in as an Irishman dumps a load of dirt, and then you up oars and poles and push for the landing; but the tide has ebbed too soon: you are only halfway, and there your scow sticks fast in the midst of a great mud bottom, from which the last ripple of water has retreated. You cannot get forward, and you are now too late to get back: night is setting in and the rain-clouds are gathering fast; down comes a deluge, drenching your goods, and filling your open scow. The returning tide will now be of no use, the scow won’t float, except under water, and that is a sort of floating which don’t suit you; skin for skin—though in this case not dry—what will a man not give for his own life? So out you jump, and by crawling and creeping, make your way through the mire to the landing, and bring up against a bin, where another sort of wallower gives you a grunt of welcome.