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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmds d des taux de reduction diff6rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour 6tre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est film6 d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 H THE WORKS OF HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT. laaii THE WORKS HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT. VOLUME XXXV. CALIFORNIA INTER POCULA SAN FRANCISCO: THE HISTORY COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 1888 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year l«ss, by HUBERT H. BANCROB r, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. All Rnjlitx lieserveil. PREFACE. So full of oddities, and crudities, and stranjjfc devel- opments, consequent upon unprecedented combina- tions of nationalities, characters and conditions, were the flush times of California, that to condense them into the more solid forms of history without to some extent stilling the life that is in them and marring their origuiality and beauty is not possible. There are topics and episodes and incidents which cannot be vividly portrayed without a tolerably free use of words — 1 do not say a free use of the imagination. Much has been written of the Californiar Inferno of 1840 and the years immediately following, nmcli tliat is neither fact nor fable. Great and gaudy [)ictures have been painted, but few of them bear nmch resemblance to nature. Many conceits have been thrown off by fertile brains which have given tlieir authors money and notoriety ; but the true artist who, with the hand of the master drawing from life, places before the observer the all-glowing facts, unbesmeared by artificial and deceptive coloring, has yet to appear. No attem[)t is made in these pages to outdo my predecessors in morbid intensifications of the certain phases of society and character engendered of the times. They contain simple sketches and plain de- scriptions, historical rather than fantastical, with no effort toward effect. (V) ■ri TI Til THl It CLA£ SAN CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME. CHAPTER I. THE VALLSr OF CAMFORNIA PAGE • . . I <'HAPTER ri. THREE CENTURIES OK Wir n r.i,, .. WILD TALK ABOUT GOLD IN CALIWIRNIA CHAPTER III. FURTHER RUMOK.S OF THE EYr^TPVi.i. ^» XH. PISCOVEBV JZZZ ' '!"'' " ™H-A PRIOR ro CHAPTER IV. AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL . . 25 44 I>URINQ THE SPRING OF 1848 . 62 CHAPTER V. THE JOURNEY OVERLAND CHAPTER VI. 89 THE VOYAGE TO CAU«,RNIA_NEWVORK TO CHAORES. ..... ,0, CHAPTER VII. THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA-ISTHMUS OF PANAMA CHAPTER VIII. THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNU-PANAMA TO ...N fr^.cISCO CHAPTER IX. EL SOSAOO CHAPTER X. CLASSICAL ABNORMITIES SAN FRANCISCO , CHAPTER XI. (V) 155 190 225 248 260 ** CONTENTS. CHAPTKR Xir. '*"'■"'•■"• .294 ('JIAITKR XIIJ. KUKTIIKR AIlNUKMiriKS „.- CHAI'TKR XIV. BUSINESS. ...... „„, CHAI'TKR XV. ILLt'sniATIONS OF LIKE ANK CUAKAtTKII gjM CHAI'TKR XVI. A.MO.N(l THE MINEIW ^g. CHAPTER XVII. SgUAn'ERISAI „^p CHAI'TKR XVm. PACIFIC COA.ST PRISONS .,,, CHAI'TKR XIX. SOME INDIAN EPISOlJIOS ^.jg CHAI'TKR XX. SOME CHINESE EPISODES gg, CHAPT) .1 XXI. COURTS OF JUSTICK AND COURT SCENES. . ROo CHAPTKR XXII. DRINKING ggg CHAPTER XXIIl. GAMBUNG go- CHAPTKR XXIV. DUELLING ^o. CHAPTER XXV. TALKS OF THE TIKES ^gg . 315 . :m CALTrORiSTIA INTER POCULA . 734 . 785 ('• CHAPTER I. THE VALLEY OF TALIFORXIA. Horteuaio peaco, thou knowest not gohVH .effect. — Tamiiiij of the ,^?>r«»r. tur^- Pnlif"^'"-' ''•™';'' '""' ''™™«' SehoUl tl>0 ni turo, Calitoniia in lier cups I ^ Onco Jong ago sailors thought to hold in tlioir Pm brac^ the god Bacclms, whon" they carried fn « Z c r ''' t 'r '^"^ 'r^ while!" buV^;::;.::; tlie god awoke he caused vines fn fw;»r +i i early to California tSintl cZ^'L^'L';.;?'.'' .er of her treasures, but wte theuSes'^C^'"'' tive, fallins on destruction P' Yet swiftly as this chaff of immigration was swent away, nierclessly as California frowned o many si was not so .nuch to bla.ne, although for a br efVace she played the bacchante, for she was ha,ll J tJ i worse than Pcntheus, wh^ from nSg ^'pl^^ ^^^'r*:^; '''""^r,!:rrv''<' '''^™'--'' '-5hii.g.st«ro" 9 - THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. the avenging deity, and bereft of sense was led tlirough the city in female apparel, stricken with mania, with a doulle sun and a double Thebes before his eyes, finally to be torn to pieces by women. First of all she was made to reveal her mystery, held sacred to the memories of time; for which extortion, like another Pythia, she was placed upon a tripod over , the chasm Cassotis, and for a Delphic temple choos- ing the snow-powdered Sierra, and for the mephitic exhalations the less offensive incense from odorous pines. Native to sublim.ited airs and all-engendering sun- shine, her intoxication partook more of youthful revels than chronic intemperance; nevertheless, thou wast drunk, California, as thou well knowest; as drunk as Agave when tearing in pieces her own son whom she took for a lion's cub. Thine hills were drunk from the fruit of their own vines; and in the great valley was heard the sullen roar of hell echoing hollow on the ear. All this was exceedingly disgraceful, and especially repulsive in young and lovely woman ; whereat, toward the immaculate east, conventional spinsters of untried chastity blushed and hung their heads, though never refusing to receive the fruits of sin. Between two mountain systems stretches the valley of California, an elliptical, trough-like plain, five hun- dred miles in length by seventy-five in width ; a vast amphitheatre, from whose arena circling terraces rise up to the lofty canopy of a pearl and berjl sky — colos- sal benches, whereon the gods might sit and watch the strange doings of men below. Although not gods we some day may be ; all gods were once men, or something worse. Therefore come sit with me upon the plateau-shelf up over the hill Mokelumne, near the source of the Stanislaus, where sometime sat Nemesis, eyeing the pilgrims as they entered the Golden Gate, and measuring out to them MOUNTAIN SYSTE^IS. led with i3fore First icred , like over . hoos- phitic orous ; sun- revels wast ink as •ui she : from valley low on il, and onian ; ntional their uits of rallcy e hun- a vast DS rise -colos- watch ^1 (vods le come Ihe hill where they them <4 tliclr several portions of invented woe. Five thous- and feet below, and far as eye can reach, spreads out a i)crl.srope of beauty such as makes us loath to put off liumanity even to be gods, lest mayhap as gods wc should have no sympathy with scenes like this. Often have I thought when standing entranced before entrancing nature, what a pity it was we could not always have her scenes before us; and as for heaven, give it to those who are dissatisfied with earth. Only exterminate north winds, nervousness, and all rascal- ity, and I could rest contented yet awhile here upon this bench, though not a god. Walled in on every side, without loop-hole or portal save by passes to the plateau regions of Utah and Arizona, and the bay of San Francisco, which across the concave from where we sit, and midway between its north and south extremes, parts the Coast Range, whose green and grizzly hills it crowds back, and ])aves the way through the Golden Gate to the Pacific, we have before us what was once broad ocean, then an inland sea, afterward a hedged-in Eden, God- givon to a thrice happy race, and later converted into a nineteenth-century coliseum, wherein was destined to be performed a play entitled The New Greetl- struggle of the Nations. Time enough, however, to talk about that to-morrow. Sit still awhile and wo sliall presently see, out here upon this holiday of creation, elves and fays, if any there are left for these new Arcadian vales. We can offer them whereon to sport ground which one day will be as classic as that of Greece, plains up-swelling beneath their feet, and slopes of evergreen and sweeps of forest. Then there are warm inviting knolls under star-lit skies, and enchanted groves where heaven's witchery might wanton regardless of irate ocean on one side or shadowless deserts on the other. When this mightv Sierra was a-building, this grand up-lift, with its fluted sides flushed with never- 4 THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. dying foliage, its white-cushioned benches, and long serrated summits, its rocky pinnacles whose alabaster crests glisten lustrous to mariners a hundred miles away, when its crevices were being filled with molten gold, a sea of sorrow was about to roll at its base, for the S(juabble for this treasure that is presently to come will be pljiful to see. Split a fern-stalk and place it in a dish with the thick ends together, and the leafy sides both lying toward the east, and you have mapped the drainage system of the California valley. The stalks are the two rivers, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, which, rising respectively at either end of the great valley, graciously receive their tributaries as they wind through oak and poplar vistas; then rolling slowly on, ever slowly, once bright and clear with happy contentment, but presently opaque in sullen shade, on to their junction, and thence together to the sea. And it is along this eastern side, where the branches and leaves and leaflets rest on the edges of the dish, and form labyrinths of ridges, and subordinate valleys upon which are flung in infinite disorder, bluffs, cliasms, and smoothly rounded stonu-waves heaped almost mountain high, that we have the Sierra foot- hills, already abnormally classic. Aside from the petrified sentinels left standing adown the centuries, there is ample evidence of what Plutus was hammer- ing at hereabout. Left, after laying the Sierra foun- dation, were the dead volcanoes which we see, and their trachyte spurs flanking dark green forests, all intermingled with lavender and bufl:' lava beds and scoriaj; blistered ashen slopes, whose vegetation is stunted and ill-tempered, and fire-riven hills of purple rock, loose and crumbling, to which cling blasted pines and wind-smitten oaks. Over many of her deformities nature spreads a seemly covering, hld- inij what were otherwise the bare bones of an un- IN THE COAST RANflE. mg iter i ilea ■>,' itcu i for r to k' 1 the 1 y"V^' 1 ua»4e ■.-'; 3 the quiu, ,:| Treat • wind ■'1 lowly .9 3 lappy hade, ■; 3 the ■1 nchcs ^ dish, \ alleys A' Llutts, % leaped 1 foot- •1 li the luries. liiucr- 1 fouii- .i m and fts, all '] K and Ron is '■] B)urple ' \ Hasted i| Hf her H hid- ; Hi un- sii;litly skeleton. Manyof these foundation-hills, and particularly the little valleys between them were fin- is] lod in her happiest mood. Many of these cinders of spent forces have been well fleshed with soil, well watered, made fragrant with gums and odorous plants, and toned in healthy glistening green. But it is down into the valleys that you must go, into the valleys of the Coast Range, and that too be- fore man has mutilated everything, if you would see what nature has done for this strip of seaboard. There are natural meadows arabesque with tawny wild-oats, blossoming pea, and golden nmstard, interspersed with indigenous vineyards, and fruit-bearing thickets. There are flower-gardens laid out in patterns by the deft fingers of nature, stars and crowns and chaplets of yellow, purple, white, and red. Scattered over broad park-like plains, and rising from tall wavy grass are oaks of various forms and species, some high with broad branches, and many scraggy and storm-bent. Here and there trees cluster in groves, and clumps of undcr-growth gather round to keep them company, liising from the broad plain are solitary buttes, with cloud-entangling crests, sharp and high; and all around the borders bluff promontories, and tongues of u[)lifted land timbered with beech and birch, ash, myrtle, and laurel, shoot out into the valley, some- times sudsiding in small round hills covered with tulips, wild onions, hemp, flax, and prickly chaparral. Now bring down through rocky canons the clear dancing water; lead it n^und in winding courses where it will best moisten the surface, broadening it occasionally into lakes, locking it in lagoons, or leav- ing it in sluggish sloughs; then go out while the morning is fresh and gray, just as the sun begins to ])our a sensuous warmth into the air, to refine the mists and give lustre to the foliage, and to set life glowing under a blue and purple haze, and if the eyes shine not with gladness, and the breast swells not THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA. with gratitude, then the heart is hard indeed, and the breast but Httle better than a flUit. You say that such a region should teem with ani- mal life, and so it does. You can see there pelicans and sea-gulls fishing together in the bays ; seals and soa-lions barking on the islands; wild fowl thickly clustered on lake and tule-marsh ; fish darting amid the waters; and beasts of many several sorts roaming tlie forests. On the tangled hillside is heard the soft note of the curlew ; you may listen also to the rust- ling of the pheasant, the chirrup of the blackbird, the whistling of the partridge, and the sweet songs of the robin and the lark. And they all rest content ; they are not driven by intense heat or cold to long migrations, their little journeys between valley and mountain being scarcely more than an afternoon's ramble. Nor need they take nmch thought for the morrow; even the prudent bee often leaves neglected the honey-bearing flower, and fails to lay in a winter's store. To elk and antelope, deer and bear, hill and plain are one, and that whether scorched by summer's sun or freshened by whiter's rain. Bounteous nature plants the fields, brings forth the tender verdure, cures the grass, and stores the acorns. Little of frozen winter is here, little of damp, malarious sum- mer ; cool invigorating nights succeed the warmest days. Ice and snow banished hence sit cold and stolid on distant peaks, whence are reflected the impotent rays of the sun. Where then is winter ? November drops its gentle rain upon the sun-burned ground, closing the weatlier- cracks, freshening the Lydian air, and carpeting the late gray hills and vales in green ; and this is winter. Spring comes warm and wanton, and nature is clad in holiday garb. Summer, dry and elastic, and trem- bling in amethystine light, is fragrant with the odor of dried grass, cypress, wild bay, and juniper. Tlie heat of summer is seldom enervating, and the thick sullen fogs that creep in from the ocean are not WONDERS OP THE REGION. t unhealthy. The cUmate of CaUfornia is reliable; though her women may be fickle, her winds are not. llaiii she sends at rain-time, and this having passed prayers are