48 CALIFORNIA. 



moderate prices for their food and lodgings. Hence their 

 better success, even at the placers. 



It was a well-known fact that many of them had success- 

 fully worked diggings abandoned by European miners. But 

 there was a dark side, that of the hatred which the Europeans 

 had against them, and in these out-of-the-w^ay places it was 

 considered of very little consequence to murder a Chinaman 

 for nothing at all, or to rob him of his gold. Nevertheless, 

 many were lucky, either as miners or merchants, and traders, 

 and returned to their country with sums of money which 

 were considered fortunes there. 



This excited the covetousness of their countrymen to a 

 high degree. Hence the constant departure of new immi- 

 grants from China to California. 



In this they were helped by their countrymen residing in 

 San Francisco, who advanced them money for the payment of 

 the passage. For the very low sum of five to ten dollars they 

 were transported from China to San Francisco. The ships 

 on which they embarked were literally crowded with human 

 lives, and for months they were scarcely able to move about ; 

 but nothing intimidated them. Many died during the passage, 

 but it made no difference to them, although the wish of a 

 Chinaman is to be buried in his own country. 



This Chinese custom gave the idea to enterprising 

 Americans to start agencies for the transport of corpses from 

 California to China, and many were the ships which were 

 freighted exclusively for that purpose. 



I witnessed several Chinese burials, the Chinese cemetery 

 being on the road from San Francisco to the Mission of 

 Dolores, not far from my house. During the whole distance 

 from the house of the dead to the cemetery they fired crackers, 

 burned odoriferous papers, and usually the mourners w^ere 

 numerous. 



About that time I made the acquaintance of Mr. Derbec, 

 a clever man, who, after trying his luck with the placers like 

 so many others, came back to San Francisco and started 

 the newspaper V Echo du Pacifique. He was the proprietor 

 and the editor of that journal, one of the best French 

 newspapers ever published in San Francisco. He was a 

 learned and modest man, and of agreeable society. We wxre 

 good friends, and when I left San Francisco I regretted 

 parting from him much. He was then publishing his journal 

 and doing fairly well. It was from him that I learned that 

 paper became so scarce for a few days that one shilling per 



