8 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



a great raw boy so often inspires in his elders. In 

 a certain sense the West has been running amok. 

 It has had a stormy youth. It has played queer 

 pranks. Talk to the wise men of the East — why 

 is wisdom supposed to dwell in the East ? — and 

 they will shake their hoary heads at the mere men- 

 tion of the West. Some of them, doubtless, have 

 suffered real pain, finding themselves in the grip of 

 a young giant unconscious of his strength. Gold 

 has come out of California and been sown broadcast 

 all over the earth. There is no advertisement like 

 gold. Even wise men are dazzled by the sight of it. 

 And accordingly the very name of California became 

 a synonym of the precious metal. Men who were 

 unwilling to leave their snug hearths sent some of 

 their savings to the State that was called golden. 

 And it is to be feared that these savings were never 

 seen again. In Wall Street, in the city of London, 

 on the continental bourses, Calif ornian mining stocks 

 were freely bought and sold. But, for the most 

 part, the great fortunes were made by the Californi- 

 ans themselves : the Fairs, the Floods, the Mackays, 

 of bonanza times. The outsiders, who — like Kip- 

 ling's woman — did not know, who never could 

 know, and did not understand, lost their money and 

 with it their faith in the El Dorado on the shores of 

 the Pacific. Although gold was being taken by the 

 ton from the mountains and streams, although 

 the country was extraordinarily prosperous, yet the 

 bottom — as the phrase runs — was out of the boom. 

 California had the whooping-cough. 



The measles followed in due course. In mining 

 times, land was held at a few cents an acre. The 



