Xvi PREFACE. 



fixed upon California by snch bonds. The sorrow caused by these sepa- 

 rations the disappointments that resulted from many causes were 

 great. One of those who looked in vain for the return of her Califor- 

 nian, [Mrs. Akers] wrote these pathetic lines : 



' Why don't he come? He said the leaves then springing 



At his return should still be fresh and green ; 

 How oft they've sprung and faded without bringing 



His truant footsteps to his hearth again ! 

 At first, there came soft oft-recurring token, 



As if to save his memory by the sign ; 

 What need ? Can they forget, who bow heart-broken 



At Memory's shrine ? 



" Why don't he come ? Not all the glittering treasures 



That freight the navies through the Golden Gate 

 Can buy me back my heart's once healthful measures, 



Or check the current of my hastening fate 

 Dispel the gloom in which I am benighted 



Restore the lost, I live but to deplore 

 Bevive again my hopes all dashed and blighted 



For evermore. 



" Why don't he come ? like traveler belated, 



Perhaps he stays and slumbers by the way : 

 Where was he faring when with greed unsated 



Death claimed the weary wanderer as his prey ? 

 Did I but know, to seek his nameless ashes 



My soul would garner all its wasting fires, 

 Like the spent taper which a moment flashes 



And then expires." 



None of the great battles in the late war broke so many heart-strings 

 and caused such wide-spread pain, as did the Calif ornian gold migration ; 

 but on the other hand, scores of thousands of families which would have 

 otherwise suffered the privations of life-long poverty, were placed in 

 comparative comfort by the remittances of their friends in the mines ; 

 and that the general influence of California on society has been highly 

 beneficial, there is no room to doubt. 



The sudden rise of the gold production to sixty million dollars ; the 

 excitement about Kern River, Fraser River, Washoe, and White Pine ; 



