CALIFORNIA AFTER THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD. 309 



" And, yet, with all these drawbacks, with all these gamb- 

 ling-tables, grog-shops, shanties, shavers, and fleas, San 

 Francisco is swelling into a town of the highest commercial 

 importance. She commands the trade of the great valleys, 

 through which the Sacramento and San Joaquin, with their 

 numerous tributaries, roll. She gathers to her bosom the pro- 

 duct and manufactures of the United States, of England, 

 China, the shores and islands of the Pacific. But now let us 

 glance at California as she was a few years since, as she is 

 now, and as she is fast becoming. 



" Three years ago, the white population of California could 

 not have exceeded ten thousand souls. She has now a popula- 

 tion of two hundred thousand, and a resistless tide of emigra- 

 tion rolling in, through the heart of Mexico, over the Isthmus 

 of Panama, around Cape Horn, and over the steeps of the 

 Rocky Mountains. Then the great staple of the country was 

 confined to wild cattle ; now it is found in exhaustless mines 

 of quicksilver and gold. Then, the shipping which frequented 

 her waters, was confined to a few drogers, that waddled along 

 her coast in quest of hides and tallow ; now, the richest 

 argosies of the commercial world are bound to her ports. 



" Three years ago, the dwellings of her citizens were reared 

 under the hands of Indians, from sun-baked adobes of mud 

 arid straw ; now, a thousand hammers are ringing on rafter 

 and roof, over walls of iron and brick. Then, the plough 

 which furrowed her fields, was the crotch of a tree, which a 

 stone or root might shiver ; now, the shares of the New 

 England farmer glitter in her soil. Then, the wheels of her 

 carts were cut from the butts of trees, with a hole in the 

 centre, for the rude axle ; now, the iron-bound wheel of the 

 finished mechanic, rolls over her hills and valleys. Then, 

 only the canoe of the Indian disturbed the sleeping surface of 



