CHAPTER XLIX.

LETTERS FROM HOME.

THERE are many objects and places of attraction in California. Indeed, it is altogether a very attractive country, as its population of three hundred thousand, attracted from all parts of the world in the space of eight years, will clearly prove. There is a charm in its climate, its scenery, bays, rivers, valleys, mountains, and ocean; its varieties of production, mineral and vegetable, and its game, fowl, fish, elk, deer, grizzly bears, etc. The great magnet is its rich deposits of virgin gold in banks that never fail, and on which every man may draw. Only make a run on them, and get them into liquidation, and they will pay all the better. But the greatest local attraction, of the heterogeneous masses here attracted, is the post-office. Thousands of men here, who never were absent from their wives and children a week at any one time, till they started for California; thousands of young men, who scarcely were ever out of sight of the smoke of their mothers' chimneys till they bade good-by to "the old folks at home," to try

their fortunes in the land of gold; hundreds of young lovers, bound by sleepless affection and plighted faith to virgins beautiful and lovely, to whom they would certainly return in two years, which was all the time any decent man could ask to make a fortune in California. Six months would probably realize all their hopes, but to be certain of no disappointment to the fair ones, the time was set for two years. How desolate the hearts of these different classes of men, in the absence of all those objects of home attraction and affection, in this vast social Sahara. The only substitutes for them were the little drops and glimpses of social life and light obtained through the postoffice. A view of the office at San Francisco, with which I have been familiar for more than seven years, will describe, in the main, all the post-offices of this coast. At first they had "two windows of delivery." One was for the "navy and army, the French, Spanish, Chinese, clergy, and the ladies." All the rest of mankind in California were waited on at the other window, provided they had time and patience to take their turn, and work their passage to it. Every man had to wait his turn, as the country mill boys used to do. The line of anxious faces, single file, was, on the arrival of every mail, from one to three hundred yards long. To travel from the rear end to the long-desired "window" was a work of from one to five hours. This long line hardly

ever began to shorten for half a day after it was formed. Its slow travelers, never in such a hurry before, making from one to two steps in their journey every minute, were entertained and fed, or bored by the newsboys, fruit boys, pop corn boys, and candy boys. The boys, who have so hard work to keep up with our fast men, or get a hearing in the streets, seem always to feel that they have a rare advantage over the men of the line, and improve it to the best of their skill. The slow travelers are weary, hungry, have calls of pressing importance, and their time more valuable than gold, but they must not break rank, or they will lose their turn, and have to begin again. Men sometimes bought a chance near the window for five dollars, and got their letters without much delay, while the speculators in chances went back and commenced anew. To look at the anxious countenances of men at the windows was painfully interesting. One man gets a letter, and immediately breaks it open, expecting "news from home," but, lo! it is a letter of introduction from some man he never saw, who has "taken the liberty of referring a particular friend" to him for information, and the "particular friend not meeting with him so soon as he expected, dropped the letter into the post-office." He tears up his only letter, and hopes never to be introduced to that "particular friend." Another is waiting in great

suspense, but the postmaster says: "Nothing for you, sir."

"Please, sir, look again," says the expectant. "Nothing for you, sir."

Turning away, he says: "I came round Cape Horn, and they were to commence writing after I had been out a month, and now it is eight months, and I haven't got a letter."

The next one gets a letter, and breaking it open, as he turns away, you see him trembling till black with agonized emotion. You at once know that some dread bolt from that letter, but little less powerful than a thunder-bolt, has struck him. You see no tears, for they seem to be frozen up in their fountains. The only utterance you hear from his lips, broken and involuntary, as he retires from the crowd, is: "0, my God, she is dead !”

The next man awaits his portion with trembling. He gets a letter, pays forty cents postage on it, and breaks it to get the news from home. "Pshaw !" says he, "I think a fellow writing to know whether he had better come to California, might pay the postage on his letter. I shall write him to stay at home.”

Another standing at the window says: "I have not received a letter for six months, and I expect it will be just so this time.”

"Perhaps," said I, "you do not write to your friends?"

"Yes, I do," said he, "but I can get no answer." "Nothing for you," says the post clerk to him, and he turns away with a sigh.

A man takes out a letter, and reads, and presses it to his lips, and reads on, and kisses it again and again. His tears break through a "windrow" of smiles on his face. It is from his dear wife; and John, and Mary, and Lizzie have all added a postscript.

"In the course of human events," the post-office was moved down to the "Portsmouth House," on the west side of the Plaza. There, with a great increase of room, the windows were multiplied. The navy and army had a place to themselves. The French, Spanish, and Chinese had their window, while the ladies and clergy still kept company to the same window. The great undistinguished masses were divided into classes by the letters of the alphabet.

All whose names commenced with a letter included between A and D fell into the A and D line. Another class for the window of E and H; and so on through the alphabet. This was quite an improvement on the old system. By and by we had "boxes," in which the letters could be seen from the outside. "Box rent" was quite an "item," but that was nothing to a man anxious to get "letters from home." Then, again, we had boxes with doors opening on the outside, and the renter of the box carried the key, so that he could