Chapter XII

ANOTHER FIRE--MY GEOLOGICAL FRIEND--“BURNT
OUT”--SACRAMENTO--LEVEE--HULKS--RATS--VIGILANCE COMMITTEE--START
FOR VOLCANO--CROCKETT--“RIGHT SIDE UP.”

_June, 1851._

Shortly after my return to Vallejo, a bright glare in the direction of San Francisco indicated too surely that the city was again in flames. The wind was very high, and we had every reason to believe that the conflagration was general. Having roused out the Old Soldier to his intense disgust, I reached Benicia in time to take a passage to San Francisco in the last returning Stockton boat. We met steamers going up river crowded, that stopped and confirmed our worst fears; mine in particular, for I had felt anxious respecting the property of a friend who had shown me unceasing kindness since my arrival in the country. I learnt that his stores had already fallen, and knew that he was ruined. It was with great difficulty we landed, for the fire had extended to the water’s edge, and in many places the wharves had been disconnected; everywhere deep holes had been burnt in them, and some were drowned that night from this cause.

The ruins of the fire were quite deserted, the inhabitants had sought the suburbs, sorrowfully no doubt, for a night’s rest; and the bright moon looked calmer than ever in contrast to the red angry embers which smouldered on every side.

I found myself alone after I had scrambled up a small hill that commanded a view of the fallen city, and I never remember feeling so solitary in my life. Small columns of red-tinted smoke rose lazily in every direction, the blackened shells of brick warehouses stood out here and there in bold relief against the moonlight, whilst every crevice and window in them was fantastically lighted by the glowing embers that still burnt within. Over the ruins of large drug stores ghostly lights of blue and green flickered in a supernatural manner. Where the fire had already been extinguished, dark pits seemed to yawn, and open wells, and deep cisterns, stood ready on all sides, their coverings being burnt, to trap the unwary adventurer who might be led to explore those regions. Not a sound broke the stillness of the night, and as the moon was overshadowed by a passing cloud, I turned and stumbled on what was either a very dead man or a very drunken one, and having seen all there was to see, I descended the hill and rejoined my companions.

Lodgings were scarce enough that night, as may be imagined, nor was there a sufficient number of houses standing to accommodate the burnt-out citizens. I was fortunate enough to meet an Hungarian geologist, who was probably the poorest man in San Francisco, for the science he professed could not at this time be put to much account in California. Were it not for the respect in which I hold a learned society at home before which “papers” are read, and by which laws are made for the better regulation of geology, I should say that the reason why the votaries of this science did not succeed in California, arose from the fact, that this eccentric country, had for ages past acted in defiance of the fundamental rules of the society in question: whether or no, whenever my friend set out in search of gold on scientific principles, he generally left that metal farther behind him at every step.

Wherever you go now you will meet a few Hungarians, and I have ever found them a superior class of men--quiet and unobtrusive in their habits, and of very liberal education. My geological friend had a small hut built among the sand-hills. As we walked towards it we were called on to deliver by three gentlemen of the road, but as, happening to be both armed, we made the usual demonstration in such cases, we went on our way without molestation. Not but what it would have been a kindness to have robbed the Hungarian, for though he had no money in his pocket, and his clothes were valueless, he was staggering through the deep sand under the weight of an enormous bag of quartz he had collected, every ounce of which I foresaw was destined to be pulverised in a hand mortar and tested, involving a great amount of labour but _no profit_. I tossed up with my friend who should have his bed, and having won it I was soon asleep, it being now nearly daylight; when I awoke he was gone, and I was at no loss to conjecture that he had sought elsewhere a softer couch than the heap of rocks and fossils that had fallen to his lot.

When I reached the burnt city all was again animation, and on every side preparations were being made for rebuilding it of brick and stone.

I have alluded to a friend; it was with sorrow that I viewed the wreck of the noble warehouses that had been his: but yesterday, as it were, he had pointed to these buildings with pride as evidencing his successful efforts, though never forgetful to whom success was owing, while to-day a heap of ashes marks the emptiness of human calculation. A week ago and his glorious hospitality assembled hundreds to commemorate the completion of a stately warehouse,--to-day the firm is hopelessly and irretrievably ruined.

He lies now in the cemetery outside San Francisco, and those who have not forgotten the warm grasp of a hand that was ever ready to succour--now that that hand is cold, will recognise this sketch, and will not blame me for recording this slight tribute to his memory.

After a diligent search I was directed by the appearance of sundry steel buttons to the ashes of what had been my wardrobe; everything had been destroyed, and among the papers I had lost were the notes and sketches of the country that I had collected to this date, which notes, after three years, I am rewriting from memory.

After contemplating mournfully the whitened remains of two little dogs that lay side by side, with the blackened ashes of my dress coat and patent leather boots, I turned from the spot, and shortly afterwards encountered Sir Henry Huntly, who in an equally melancholy frame of mind, had just completed a survey of his “ashes;” we agreed to pay a visit to the northern mines, and made preparations for a start.

The wooden wharves had for the most part been converted into charcoal, and the steamer was crowded with those who like ourselves were anxious to leave behind them so much desolation.

The mail steamer had come in from Panama, and ladies who had just arrived to find their husbands, houseless and ruined, were hurrying careworn from their toilsome journey sorrowfully to seek a temporary shelter in Sacramento. There were troupes of actors, who, forgetting all rivalry in their common adversity, felt the reality of tragedy. The fire bell had arrested their performances, and though they worked ever so manfully at the breaks, the temples of Thespis had been swept away in the storm, and with them their wardrobes and arrears of pay. There were professional gamblers for whom the losing card had now turned up, who, burnt out of their tinsel saloons, were starting for the mines, to commence life again in a thimble-rigging tent, until growing prosperous they could work gradually back again to San Francisco, where the tinsel saloons were already being rebuilt.

There were speculators who had a “snug lot” of flour or pork up country, and who were off to fetch it down and lock it up in store-ships, until the wants of the community should make it worth its weight in gold almost. There were small traders, whose debtor and creditor accounts had been, fortunately for them, buried in oblivion by the general ruin, and who talked furiously of their losses, and bespattered their hard fate with curses of the loudest and deepest character. And there were many who like myself had come to satisfy their curiosity, just as we go to the sea-shore and view the wreck of a noble ship; and these grew hilarious upon the strength of having lost nothing, and returned to their homes in famous good humour with themselves and all the world.

Passing Benicia we entered Suisun Bay, on the shores of which a city was attempted--New York by name--but failed. There is something to admire in the audacity of speculators, who finding themselves possessed of a few acres of swamp, wave their wands and order a city to appear. The working human tide of California ebbed and flowed past New York with great regularity, but all commands to arrest it, and direct it from its natural course were futile as regarded that city, which really presented no advantage that I could see. It is now dusk, and we enter the Sacramento river. Presently we pass a large steamboat going down, who gives us a close shave, and complimentarily strikes three bells, upon which we strike three bells; and in a few minutes we pass a small steamboat also going down, who gives us a closer shave, and shrieks three times out of something connected with her steam-pipe, upon which we groan three times out of something connected with our steam-pipe. These salutes are invariably observed, and the greater the rivalry between the boats, the louder they scream at each other.

The banks of the river are for the most part marshy, but in the fading light we catch glimpses here and there of small cultivated enclosures, with comfortable-looking shanties peeping between the oak trees. After supper everybody turns in, and at daylight we arrive at Sacramento.

Sacramento is built on the banks of the river, from the encroachments of which it is as often drowned as its sister city is burnt. The houses are gaily painted, and the American flag waves in every direction; the streets are wide, and some trees that have been left standing in the town give it a cheerful appearance.

It is an American town at the first glance; an immense quantity of sign-boards stare at you in every direction, and if anything would induce a man to purchase “Hay and Grain,” “Gallego Flour,” “Goshen Butter,” or any other article for which he has no want, it would be the astounding size of the capital letters, in which these good things are forced upon his notice.

Every other house is an hotel or boarding-house, for with few exceptions every one is put out to “livery,” as it were, in Sacramento; and in hard times, when cash is scarce, one half of the population may be said to feed the other half gratuitously, or on credit, which often amounts to the same thing, thus affording a beautiful illustration of mutual support and confidence.

Sacramento is terribly dusty; the great traffic to and from the mines grinds three or four inches of the top soil into a red powder, that distributes itself everywhere; it is the dirtiest dust I ever saw, and is never visited by a shower until the rainy season sets in, and suddenly converts it into a thick mud.

I was introduced to a club of Sacramento gentlemen, who had formed themselves into what they called a literary society. In their rooms was to be found what in those days was scarce, a tolerable collection of books and the periodicals of the day. They were very jovial fellows, well-informed, not so literary as I expected, and certainly quite free from pedantry. The most important ceremony at their meetings consisted in the members standing in a circle, upon which a Chinese hat of teetotum shape was spun in the centre, and the “literary savant,” who was indicated by a black mark on the hat when it ceased to spin, stood “drinks for the crowd.”

The weather was oppressively warm, and the iced

“drinks”[11] were necessary even to a literary society;--so much so, that the hat was kept continually spinning by public acclamation. There was no lack of sensible and entertaining conversation, and the evenings passed with these gentlemen were to my thinking none the less pleasant, although perhaps less literary, for the twirling of the Chinese hat.

A levée, or sea-wall, has been built in front of the city, to protect it from the river when it rises with the high spring tides; but the river generally undermines these works, and flows over the surrounding plain as it has been wont to do for ages past.

A large number of old dismantled hulks, now converted into floating houses, are moored along the front of the levée, and it is from these probably the rats first landed that are now so distinguished at Sacramento for their size and audacity. These animals come out after dark in strong gangs, as if the town belonged to them, and attack anything that may happen to have been left on the wharf during the night; being very numerous, the destruction they cause to merchandise is a serious loss.

Ten thousand dollars were offered, I was told, to the man who should clear the town, and seduced by this bribe, some one in the rat-catching line volunteered to draw all the rats into the country, and there enclose them in a paddock, to be publicly exposed previous to a massacre; but whether the rats thought it best to leave well alone, and be content with the comfortable quarters and nice pine-apple cheeses they enjoyed in the city, or whether they objected to country air, does not appear; but they never went out to the paddock, except one, who is reported to have approached within a reasonable distance of the vain-glorious rat-catcher, and then standing on his hind legs, after the manner of rats, and scratching the tip of his nose contemplatively with his paw, he turned tail for the city, causing grievous disappointment to five terrier dogs, who ineffectually chevied him in.

The conflagrations of San Francisco had been attributed to incendiarists, and as many attempts to fire the town had been frustrated, it is probable that this was the case. A Volunteer-Guard, therefore, patrolled the city of Sacramento at night, to guard against this evil, and to protect the inhabitants from the wholesale plunder of organised bands of burglars. Crime had increased so rapidly of late in San Francisco, and robbers and incendiarists had become so emboldened by the impotence and venality of the justiciary, that the citizens organised a society styled the Vigilance Committee, for the purpose of affording the protection to life and property that the law would not bestow.

So far was well; but this society, composed of men who _smarted under personal loss_, attributed _perhaps unjustly_ to incendiarism, took upon themselves the dispensation of life and death.

Men detected, as was supposed, in the act of _felony only_, were tried, sentenced, and executed, without defence, in the same night.

It is useless now to dwell on the summary executions that were put in force in half a dozen cases by the Vigilance Committee; no one would defend their acts, and they met with opposition at the time from the better class of citizens; the memory of them may pass away, but they certainly had the effect at the time of ridding the country of a set of desperate men, and of restoring a degree of security to the inhabitants of San Francisco that had never previously been enjoyed.

Colonel D----, a friend of Sir Henry’s, had control of a quartz vein at a place called Volcano, in the northern mines, and we determined upon an inspection of this vein, which was reported to be highly auriferous.

We started at daybreak, in a light spring waggon, and, taking with us our blankets, we were soon five miles from Sacramento, and pulled up at the young town of Brighton.

Colonel D---- appeared to be the owner of Brighton; and, being a sporting man, he had constructed a race-course here; with the exception of the race-course, and one or two stables, there was not much of the town developed as yet; but being really advantageously situated, I have no doubt that it is well populated by this time.

The road was straight and level, and on either side, enclosed by fences, were well-cultivated farms; numerous dwelling-houses lined the road, and it was difficult to believe that the signs of civilisation and industry, that met us on all sides, were the result of two years’ occupation of the country by gold hunters.

As we left Brighton we overtook long lines of waggons, heavily laden with stores for the mines; and these, drawn by innumerable oxen, ploughed up the deep dust to such an extent as obliged us to cover our faces as we passed them. We met waggons coming in, containing miners, on whom, to judge by their appearance generally, a bath, a shave, and a new suit of clothes would not be thrown away; and I have no doubt they indulged in these luxuries on their arrival at Sacramento.

We stopped to breakfast at a house of entertainment kept by one Crockett, who had a very pretty wife; but the possession of this luxury, so far from humanising Crockett, appeared to keep him in a continual fever of irritation; for he was jealous, poor fellow, and used to worry himself because there was ever a dozen or two of hairy miners gazing in a bewildered manner at Mrs. C.; but, if report speaks truly, the bonnet and boots of a “female” had been successfully exhibited in this region at a dollar a head, (a glimpse of them being thought cheap even at that price) surely therefore Crockett might have excused the poor miners for regarding attentively the original article when presented gratis in the shape of a pretty woman.

Crockett carried a revolver of disproportionate size, he not being a large man, and this instrument he occasionally used upon provocation. A great number of miners had looked at Mrs. Crockett on the morning of our arrival, and her husband had not quite finished foaming at the mouth in consequence, when we entered the house. It was some time before he condescended to be civil; but having at length informed us that he was “so riled that his skin cracked,” he added that he was a “devilish good fellow when he was ‘_right side up_,’” and commanded us to drink with him. After this he procured us a most excellent breakfast, and, on the strength of our respectable appearance, allowed Mrs. Crockett to preside at this repast, which she did in a nervous manner, as if momentarily under the expectation of being shot.

We left our host “right side up,” and, proceeding on our way, we soon lost sight of the cultivated country and began to traverse undulating plains studded with the dwarf oak. The road now gradually becomes worse, and has long ceased to be level; we pass road-side houses, whose names indicate the localities in which they are placed: “Rolling Hills,” “Willow Springs,” “Red Mountain,” and so forth.

After travelling twenty miles we ascend the first range of hills; the pine-tree appears, and here and there we catch glimpses of the American Fork River. As we leave the plain, and ascend the wooded hills, trails may be observed indicated by blazed trees, leading to mountain gorges, where diggers are at work. Flowers clothe the hills in the richest profusion, and most conspicuous is the yellow poppy, which lightens up these desolate red hills for a few weeks each spring; growing in rich masses that, in contrast to the bleak and stunted herbage, are like sunbeams, and like sunbeams leave every spot they cheer more gloomy, when, under the influence of the first hot summer wind, they droop in a night and pass away.