myself, and putting my finger down my throat, I very soon relieved myself of all his villanous compounds. I think I fainted after it. I know I felt as if I was going to faint, and shortly afterwards was sensible of a lapse of time which I could not account for; but on inquiring of some of my fellow-passengers, I could find no one who had so far interested himself on my account as to be able to give me any information on the subject. I took my own case in hand after that, and very soon got rid of the fever, although the emetic treatment had so used me up that for a fortnight I was hardly able to stand. We afterwards discovered that this man was only now making his debut as a physician. He had graduated, however, as a shoemaker, a farmer, and I don't know what else besides; latterly he had practised as a horse-dealer, and I have no doubt it was some horse-medicine which he administered to me so freely. We had only two deaths on board, and in justice to the doctor, I must say he was not considered to have been the cause of either of them. One case was that of a young man, who, while the doctor was tresting him for fever, was at the same time privately treating himself to large doses, taken frequently, of bad brandy, of which he had an ample stock stowed away ander his bed. About a day and a half settled him. The other was a much more melancholy case. He was a young Swede -such a delicate, effeminate fellow that he seemed quite out of place among the rough and noisy characters who formed the rest of the party. A few days before we left Panama, a steamer had arrived from San Francisco with a great many cases of cholera on board. Numerous deaths had occurred in Panama, and considerable alarm prevailed there in consequence. The Swede was attacked with fever like the rest of us, but he had no force in him, either mental or bodily, to bear up against sickness under such circumstances; and the fear of cholera had taken such possession of him, that he insisted upon it that he had cholera, and that he would die of it that night. His lamentations were most piteous, but all attempts to reassure him were in vain. He very soon became delirious, and died raving before morning. None of us were doctors enough to know exactly what he died of, but the general belief was that he frightened himself to death. The church service was read over him by the supercargo, many of the passengers merely leaving their cards to be present at the ceremony, and as soon as he was launched over the side, resuming their game where they had been interrupt ed; and this, moreover, was on Sunday morning. In future the captain prohibited all card-playing on Sundays, but throughout the voyage nearly one half of the pas sengers spent the whole day, and half the night, in playing the favorite game of "Poker," which is something like Brag, and at which they cheated each other in the most barefaced manner, so causing perpetual quarrels, which, however, never ended in a fight-for the reason, as it seemed to me, that as every one wore his bowie-knife, the prospect of getting his op ponent's knife between his ribs deterred each man from drawing his own, or offering any violence whatever. The poor Swede had no friends on board; nobody knew who he was, where he came from, or anything at all about him; and so his effects were, a few days after his death, sold at auction by order of the captain, one of the passengers, who had been an auctioneer in the States, offici ating on the occasion. Great rascalities were frequently practised at this time by those engaged in conveying passengers, in sailing vessels, from Panama to San Francisco. There were such numbers of men waiting anxiously in Panama to take the first opportunity, that offered, of reaching California, that there was no difficulty in filling any old tub of a ship with passengers; and, when once men arrived in San Francisco, they were generally too much occupied in making dollars, to give any trouble on account of the treatment they had received on the voyage. Many vessels were consequently despatched with a load of passengers, most shamefully ill supplied with provisions, even what they had being of the most inferior quality; and it often happened that they had to touch in distress at the intermediate ports for the ordinary necessaries of life. We very soon found that our ship was no exception. For the first few days we fared pretty well, but, by degrees, one article after another became used up; and by the time we had been out a fortnight, we had absolutely nothing to eat and drink, but salt pork, musty flour, and bad coffee-no mustard, vinegar, sugar, pepper, or anything of the sort, to render such food at all palatable. It may be imagined how delightful it was, in recovering from fever, when one naturally has a craving for something good to eat, to have no greater delicacy in the way of nourishment, than gruel made of musty flour, au natural. There was great indignation among the passengers. A lot of California emigrants are not a crowd to be trifled with, and the idea of pitching the supercargo overboard was quite seriously entertained; but, fortunately for himself, he was a very plausi ble man, and succeeded in talking them into the belief that he was not to blame. We had been out about six weeks, when we sighted a ship, many miles off, going the same way as ourselves, and the captain determined to board her, and endeavor to get some of the articles of which we were so much in need. There was great excitement among the passengers; all wanted to accompany the captain in his boat, but, to avoid making invidious distinctions, he refused to take any one unless he would pull an oar. I was one of four who volunteered to do so, and we left the ship amid clamorous injunctions not to forget sugar, beef, molasses, vinegar, and so on-whatever each man most longed for. We had four or five Frenchmen on board, who earnestly entreated me to get them even one bottle of oil. handed into the boat; and when we described the splendid dinner we had just eaten, the faces lengthened so much, and assumed such a very wistful expression, that it seemed a wanton piece of cruelty to have mentioned the circumstance at all. The time passed pleasantly enough; all were disposed to be cheerful, and amongst so many men there are always some who afford amusement for the rest. Many found constant occupation in trading off their coats. hats, boots, trunks, or anything they possessed. I think scarcely any one went ashore in San Francisco with a single article of clothing which he possessed in Panama and there was hardly an article of any man's wardrobe, which, by the time our voyage was over, had not at one time been the property of every other man on board the ship. We had one cantankerous old Englishman on board, who used to roll out, most volubly, good round English oaths, greatly to the amusement of some of the American passengers, for the English style of cursing and swearing is very different from that which prevails in the States. This old fellow was made a butt for all manner of practical jokes. He had a way of going to sleep during the day in all sorts of We had a long pull, as the stranger was places; and when the dinner-bell rang, he in no hurry to heave-to for us; and on would find himself tied hand and foot. coming up to her, we found her to be a They sewed up the sleeves of his coat, and Scotch barque, bound also for San Fran- then bet him long odds he could not put it cisco, without passengers, but very nearly on, and take it off again, within a minute. as badly off as ourselves. She could not They made up cigars for him with some spare us anything at all, but the captain powder in the inside; and in fact the jokes gave us an invitation to dinner, which we played off upon him were endless, the great accepted with the greatest pleasure. It fun being, apparently, to hear him swear, was Sunday, and so the dinner was of which he did most heartily. He always course the best they could get up. It fancied himself ill, and said that quinine only consisted of fresh pork (the remains was the only thing that would save him; of their last pig), and duff; but with mus- but the quinine, like everything else on tard to the pork, and sugar to the duff, it board, was all used up. However, one seemed to us a most sumptuous banquet; man put up some papers of flour and salt, and, not having the immediate prospect of and gave them to him as quinine, saying such another for some time to come, we he had just found them in looking over his made the most of the present opportunity. trunk. Constant inquiries were then made In fact, we cleared the table. I don't after the old man's health, when he deknow what the Scotch skipper thought of clared the quinine was doing him a world us, but if he really could have spared us of good, and that his appetite was much anything, the ravenous way in which we improved. demolished his dinner would surely have softened his heart. On arriving again alongside our own ship, with the boat empty as when we left her, we were greeted by a row of very long faces looking down on us over the side; not a word was said, because they had watched us with the glass leaving the other vessel, and had seen that nothing was He was so much teased at last that he used to go about with a naked bowie-knife in his hand, with which he threatened to do awful things to whoever interfered with him. But even this did not secure him much peace, and he was such a dreadfully crabbed old rascal, that I thought the stirring-up he got was quite necessary to keep him sweet. After a wretchedly long passage, during which we experienced nothing but calms, light winds, and heavy contrary gales, we entered the Golden Gates of San Francisco harbor with the first and only fair wind we were favored with, and came to anchor before the city about eight o'clock in the evening. CHAPTER III. SAN FRANCISCO-APPEARANCE OF THE HOUSES— ent day the whole of the business part of the city of San Francisco stands on solid ground, where a few years ago large ships lay at anchor; and what was then highwater mark is now more than a mile inland. The principal street of the town was about three-quarters of a mile long, and in it were most of the bankers' offices, the principal stores, some of the best restaurants, and numerous drinking and gam GROWTH OF THE CITY THE PLAZA-SHIPS bling saloons. IN THE STREETS-LIVING-BOOT-BLACKING -RESTAURANTS-HOTELS. The entrance to San Francisco harbor is between precipitous rocky headlands about a mile apart, and which have received the name of the Golden Gates. The harbor itself is a large sheet of water, twelve miles across at its widest point, and in length forty or fifty miles. Before the discovery of gold in the country, it consisted merely of a few small houses occupied by native Californians, and one or two foreign merchants engaged in the export of hides and horns. The harbor was also a favorite watering-place for whalers and men-of-war, cruising in that part of the world. In the Plaza, a large open square, was the only remaining house of the San Francisco of other days-a small cottage built of sun-dried bricks. Two sides of the Plaza were composed of the most imposing-looking houses in the city, some of which were of brick several stories high; others, though of wood, were large buildings with handsome fronts, in imitation of stone, and nearly every one of them was a gambling-house. Scattered over the hills overhanging the town, apparently at random, but all on specified lots, on streets which as yet were only defined by rude fences, were habita. tions of various descriptions, handsome wooden houses of three or four stories, neat little cottages, iron houses, and tents innumerable. At the time of our arrival in 1851, hardly a vestige remained of the original village. Some were mere tents, with per- Rents were exorbitantly high, and serhaps a wooden front sufficiently strong to vants were hardly to be had for money; support the sign of the occupant; some housekeeping was consequently only unwere composed of sheets of zinc on a dertaken by those who did not fear the wooden framework; there were numbers expense, and who were so fortunate as to of corrugated iron houses, the most un- have their families with them. The popsightly things possible; also dingy-looking ulation, however, consisted chiefly of single Chinese houses, and occasionally some sub-men, and the usual style of living was to stantial brick buildings; but the great majority were nondescript, shapeless, patchwork concerns, in the fabrication of which, sheet-iron, wood, zinc, and canvass, seemed to have been employed indiscriminately; while here and there, in the middle of a row of such houses, appeared the hulk of a ship, which had been hauled up, and now served as a warehouse, the cabins being fitted up as offices, or sometimes converted into a boarding-house. The hills rose so abruptly from the shore that there was not room for the rapid extension of the city, and as sites were more rainable, as they were nearer the shipping, the first growth of the city was out into the a. Already houses had been built out on piles for nearly half-a-mile beyond the original high-water mark; and it was thus that ships, having been hauled up and bait in, came to occupy a position so completely out of their element. At the pres have some sort of room to sleep in, and to board at a restaurant. But even a room to oneself was an expensive luxury, and it was more usual for men to sleep in their stores or offices. As for a bed no one was particular about that; a shake-down on a table, or on the floor, was as common as anything else, and sheets were a luxury but little thought of. Every man was his own servant, and his own porter besides. It was nothing unusual to see a respectable old gentleman, perhaps some old paterfamilias, who at home would have been horrified at the idea of doing such a thing, open his store in the morning himself, take a broom and sweep it out, and then proceed to blacken his boots. The boot-blacking trade, however, was one which sprung up and flourished rapidly. It was monopolised by Frenchmen, and was principally conducted in the Plaza, on the long row of steps in front of the places. In the course of a month, or a year, in San Francisco, there was more hard work done, more speculative schemes were conceived and executed, more money was made and lost, there was more buying and selling, more sudden changes of fortune, more eating and drinking, more smoking. swearing, gambling, and tobacco-chewing, more crime and profligacy, and, at the same time, more solid advancement made by the people, as a body, in wealth, prosperity, and the refinements of civilization, than could be shown in an equal space of time by any community of the same size on the face of the earth. gambling saloons. At first the accommo- | than they would in a year in most other dation afforded was not very great. One had to stand upon one foot and place the other on a little box, while a Frenchman, standing a few steps below, operated upon it. Presently arm-chairs were introduced, and, the boot-blacks working in partnership, time was economised by both boots being polished simultaneously. It was a curious sight to see thirty or forty men sitting in a row in the most public part of the city having their boots blacked, while as many more stood waiting for their turn. The next improvement was being accommodated with the morning papers while undergoing the operation; and finally, the boot-blacking fraternity, keeping pace with the progressive spirit of the age, opened saloons furnished with rows of easy-chairs on a raised platform, in which the patients sat and read the news, or admired themselves in the mirror on the opposite wall. In 1851, however, things had not at tained such a pitch of refinement as to render the appearance of a man's boots a matter of the slightest consequence. As far as mere eating and drinking went, living was good enough. The market was well supplied with every description of game venison, elk, antelope, grizzly bear, and an infinite variety of wild-fowl. The harbor abounded with fish, and the Sacramento river was full of splendid salmon, equal in flavor to those of the Scottish rivers, though in appearance not quite such a highly finished fish, being rather clumsy about the tail. Vegetables were not so plentiful. Po tatoes and onions, as fine as any in the world, were the great stand-by. Other vegetables, though scarce, were produced in equal perfection, and upon a gigantic scale. A beetroot weighing a hundred pounds, and that looked like the trunk of a tree, was not thought a very remarkable specimen. The wild geese and ducks were extremely numerous all round the shores of the bay, and many men, chiefly English and French, who would have scorned the idea of selling their game at home, here turned their sporting abilities to good account, and made their guns a source of handsome profit. A Frenchman with whom I was acquainted killed fifteen hundred dollars' worth of game in two weeks. San Francisco exhibited an immense amount of vitality compressed into a small compass, and a degree of earnestness was observable in every action of a man's daily life. People lived more there in a week All The every-day jog-trot of ordinary human existence was not a fast enough pace for Californians in their impetuous pursuit of wealth. The longest period of time ever thought of was a month. Money was loaned, and houses were rented, by the month interest and rent being invariably payable monthly and in advance. engagements were made by the month. during which period the changes and contingencies were so great that no one was willing to commit himself for a longer term. In the space of a month the whole city might be swept off by fire, and a totally new one might be flourishing in its place. So great was the constant fluctuation in the prices of goods, and so rash and speculative was the usual style of business, that no great idea of stability could be attached to anything, and the ever-varying aspect of the streets, as the houses were being constantly pulled down and rebuilt, was emblematic of the equally varying fortunes of the inhabitants. In the midst of it all, the runners, or tooters, for the opposition river steamboats, would be cracking up the superiority of their respective boats at the top of their lungs, somewhat in this style: "One dollar to-night for Sacramento, by the splendid steamer Senator, the fastest boat that ever turned a wheel from long wharf with feather pillows and curled-hair mattrasses, mahogany doors and silver hinges. She has got eight young lady passengers to-night, that speak all the dead languages, and not a colored man from stem to stern of her." Here an opposition runner would let out on him, and the two would slang each other in the choisest California Billingsgate for the amusement of the admiring crowd. Presently one would hear "Hullo! there's a muss!" (Anglicé, a row), and men would be seen rushing to the spot from all quarters. Auction-rooms, gambling-rooms, stores, and drinking-shops would be emptied, and a mob collect in the street in a moment. The "muss" would probably be only a difficulty between two gentlemen, who had referred it to the arbitration of knives or pistols; but if no one was killed, the mob would disperse, to resume their various occupations, just as quickly as they had collected. Some of the principal streets were planked, as was also, of course, that part of the city which was built on piles; but where there was no planking, the mud was ankle-deep, and in many places there were mud-holes, rendering the street almost impassable. California was often said to be famous for three things-rats, fleas, and empty bottles. The whole place swarmed with rats of an enormous size; one could hardly walk at night without treading on them. They destroyed an immense deal of property, and a good ratting terrier was worth his weight in gold dust. I knew instances, however, of first rate terriers in Sacramento City (which for rats beat San Francisco hollow) becoming at last so utterly disgusted with killing rats, that they ceased to consider it any sport at all, and allowed the rats to run under their noses without deigning to look at them. As for the other industrious little animals, they were a terrible nuisance. I suppose they were indigenous to the sandy Boil. It was quite a common thing to see a gentleman suddenly pull up the sleeve of his coat, or the leg of his trousers, and smile in triumph when he caught his little tormentor. The few ladies who were already in San Francisco, very naturally avoided appearing in public; but numbers of female toilettes, of the most extravagantly rich and gorgeous materials, swept the muddy streets, and added not a little to the incongruous variety of the scene. There was in the crowd a large proportion of well-shaven men, in stove-pipe hats and broadcloth; but, however nearly a man might approach in appearance to the conventional idea of a gentleman, it is not to be supposed, on that account, that he either was or got the credit of being, a bit better than his neighbors. The man standing next him, in the guise of a laboring man, was perhaps his superior in wealth, character and education. Appearances, at least as far as dress was concerned, went for nothing at all. A man was judged by the amount of money in his purse, and frequently the man to be most courted for his dollars was the most to be despised for his looks. At this time the gamblers were, as a general thing, the best dressed men in San Francisco. Many of them were very gen. tlemanly in appearance, but there was a peculiar air about them which denoted their profession. To be Continued.] THE BLEEDING HEART. AN INCIDENT OF THE GREAT FIRE OF MAY, 1851. Night came upon the city. In the halls Was feasting; in the broad and lighted streets, The crowds of busy men went rushing on, Hark! a sound, Filling all hearts with terror-drowning e'en "Awake! awake! the city is on fire!" Then came a rush like chariots through the streets, And fearful clangor, and the sounding cry And then a roar It fell! it fell! Turret and tower, and gorgeous glittering dome, "Bring forth the dead!" and straight they brought them forth; Changed, limbless forms, all scorched and scathed with fire! Oh! God! their weeping mothers scarce could tell, repose One came-she was a lady of high mien, And noble beauty, one of Spain's fair daughters, Who left her on that eve to join the throng She had not seen him since. Hark! a wail, Piercing all hearts, and freezing e'en the blood Of valiant men with terror-a loud shriek on the cold earth together, side by side, |