Part 3 (1/2)

The route by the Isthmus, on the other hand, allured the impatient, the reckless, and those who were unaccustomed to and undesirous of hards.h.i.+ps. Most of the gamblers and speculators, for example, as well as the cheaper politicians, went by Panama.

In October, 1848, the first steams.h.i.+p of the Pacific Steams.h.i.+p Company began her voyage from New York to Panama and San Francisco, and reached her destination toward the end of February. On the Atlantic every old tub that could be made to float so far was pressed into service. Naturally there were many more vessels on the Atlantic side than on the Pacific side, and the greatest congestion took place at Panama. Every man was promised by the s.h.i.+pping agent a through pa.s.sage, but the s.h.i.+pping agent was careful to remain in New York.

The overcrowded s.h.i.+ps were picturesque though uncomfortable. They were crowded to the guards with as miscellaneous a lot of pa.s.sengers as were ever got together. It must be remembered that they were mostly young men in the full vigor of youth and thoroughly imbued with the adventurous spirit. It must be remembered again, if the reader can think back so far in his own experience, that youth of that age loves to deck itself out both physically and mentally in the trappings of romance. Almost every man wore a red s.h.i.+rt, a slouch hat, a repeating pistol, and a bowie-knife; and most of them began at once to grow beards. They came from all parts of the country. The lank Maine Yankee elbowed the tall, sallow, black-haired Southerner. Social distinctions soon fell away and were forgotten. No one could tell by speech, manners, or dress whether a man's former status was lawyer, physician, or roustabout. The days were spent in excited discussions of matters pertaining to the new country and the theory and practice of gold-mining. Only two things were said to be capable of breaking in on this interminable palaver. One was dolphins and the other the meal-gong. When dolphins appeared, each pa.s.senger promptly rushed to the side of the s.h.i.+p and discharged his revolver in a fusillade that was usually harmless. Meal time always caught the majority unawares. They tumbled and jostled down the companionway only to find that the wise and forethoughtful had preempted every chair. There was very little quarreling. A holiday spirit seemed to pervade the crowd. Everybody was more or less elevated in mood and everybody was imbued with the same spirit of comrades.h.i.+p in adventure.

But with the sight of sh.o.r.e, the low beach, and the round high bluffs with the castle atop that meant Chagres, this comrades.h.i.+p rather fell apart. Soon a landing was to be made and transportation across the Isthmus had to be obtained. Men at once became rivals for prompt service. Here, for the first time, the owners of the weird mining-machines already described found themselves at a disadvantage, while those who carried merely the pick, shovel, and small personal equipment were enabled to make a flying start. On the beach there was invariably an immense wrangle over the hiring of boats to go up the river. These were a sort of dug-out with small decks in the bow and in the stern, and with low roofs of palmetto leaves amids.h.i.+ps. The fare to Cruces was about fifteen dollars a man. n.o.body was in a hurry but the Americans.

Chagres was a collection of cane huts on level ground, with a swamp at the back. Men and women clad in a single cotton garment lay about smoking cigars. Naked and pot-bellied children played in the mud. On the threshold of the doors, in the huts, fish, bullock heads, hides, and carrion were strewn, all in a state of decomposition, while in the rear was the jungle and a lake of stagnant water with a delicate bordering of greasy blue mud. There was but one hotel, called the Crescent City, which boasted of no floor and no food. The newcomers who were unsupplied with provisions had to eat what they could pick up. Unlearned as yet in tropical ways, they wasted a tremendous lot of nervous energy in trying to get the natives started. The natives, calm in the consciousness that there was plenty of demand, refused to be hurried. Many of the travelers, thinking that they had closed a bargain, returned from sightseeing only to find their boat had disappeared. The only safe way was to sit in the canoe until it actually started.

With luck they got off late in the afternoon, and made ten or twelve miles to Gatun. The journey up the lazy tropical river was exciting and interesting. The boatmen sang, the tropic forests came down to the banks with their lilies, shrubs, mangoes, cocos, sycamores, palms; their crimson, purple, and yellow blossoms; their bananas with torn leaves; their b.u.t.terflies and paroquets; their streamers and vines and scarlet flowers. It was like a vision of fairyland.

Gatun was a collection of bamboo huts, inhabited mainly by fleas. One traveler tells of attempting to write in his journal, and finding the page covered with fleas before he had inscribed a dozen words. The gold seekers slept in hammocks, suspended at such a height that the native dogs found them most convenient back-scratchers. The fleas were not inactive. On all sides the natives drank, sang, and played monte. It generally rained at night, and the flimsy huts did little to keep out the wet. Such things went far to take away the first enthusiasm and to leave the travelers in rather a sad and weary-eyed state.

By the third day the river narrowed and became swifter. With luck the voyagers reached Gorgona on a high bluff. This was usually the end of the river journey. Most people bargained for Cruces six miles beyond, but on arrival decided that the Gorgona trail would be less crowded, and with unanimity went ash.o.r.e there. Here the bargaining had to be started all over again, this time for mules. Here also the demand far exceeded the supply, with the usual result of arrogance, indifference, and high prices. The difficult ride led at first through a dark deep wood in clay soil that held water in every depression, seamed with steep eroded ravines and diversified by low pa.s.ses over projecting spurs of a chain of mountains. There the monkeys and parrots furnished the tropical atmosphere, a.s.sisted somewhat by innumerable dead mules along the trail. Vultures sat in every tree waiting for more things to happen. The trail was of the consistency of very thick mud. In this mud the first mule had naturally left his tracks; the next mules trod carefully in the first mule's footprints, and all subsequent mules did likewise. The consequence was a succession of narrow deep holes in the clay into which an animal sank half-way to the shoulder. No power was sufficient to make these mules step anywhere else. Each hole was full of muddy water. When the mule inserted his hoof, water spurted out violently as though from a squirt-gun. Walking was simply impossible.

All this was merely adventure for the young, strong, and healthy; but the terrible part of the Panama Trail was the number of victims claimed by cholera and fever. The climate and the unwonted labor brought to the point of exhaustion men unaccustomed to such exertions. They lay flat by the trail as though dead. Many actually did die either from the jungle fever or the yellow-jack. The universal testimony of the times is that this horseback journey seemed interminable; and many speak of being immensely cheered when their Indian stopped, washed his feet in a wayside mudhole, and put on his pantaloons. That indicated the proximity, at last, of the city of Panama.

It was a quaint old place. The two-story wooden houses with corridor and verandah across the face of the second story, painted in bright colors, leaned crazily out across the streets. Narrow and mysterious alleys led between them. Ancient cathedrals and churches stood gray with age before the gra.s.s-grown plazas. In the outskirts were ma.s.sive masonry ruins of great buildings, convents, and colleges, some of which had never been finished. The immense blocks lay about the ground in confusion, covered by thousands of little plants, or soared against the sky in broken arches and corridors. But in the body of the town, the old picturesque houses had taken on a new and temporary smartness which consisted mostly of canvas signs. The main street was composed of hotels, eating-houses, and a.s.sorted h.e.l.ls. At times over a thousand men were there awaiting transportation. Some of them had been waiting a long time, and had used up all their money. They were broke and desperate. A number of American gambling-houses were doing business, and of course the saloons were much in evidence. Foreigners kept two of the three hotels; Americans ran the gambling joints; French and Germans kept the restaurants. The natives were content to be interested but not entirely idle spectators. There was a terrible amount of sickness aggravated by American quack remedies. Men rejoiced or despaired according to their dispositions. Every once in a while a train of gold bullion would start back across the Isthmus with mule-loads of huge gold bars, so heavy that they were safe, for no one could carry them off to the jungle. On the other hand there were some returning Californians, drunken and wretched. They delighted in telling with grim joy of the disappointments of the diggings. But probably the only people thoroughly unhappy were the steams.h.i.+p officials. These men had to bear the brunt of disappointment, broken promises, and savage recrimination, if means for going north were not very soon forthcoming. Every once in a while some s.h.i.+p, probably an old tub, would come wallowing to anchor at the nearest point, some eleven miles from the city. Then the raid for transportation took place all over again. There was a limited number of small boats for carrying purposes, and these were pounced on at once by ten times the number they could accommodate. s.h.i.+ps went north scandalously overcrowded and underprovisioned. Mutinies were not infrequent. It took a good captain to satisfy everybody, and there were many bad ones. Some men got so desperate that, with a touching ignorance of geography, they actually started out in small boats to row to the north. Others attempted the overland route. It may well be believed that the reaction from all this disappointment and delay lifted the hearts of these argonauts when they eventually sailed between the Golden Gates.

This confusion, of course, was worse at the beginning. Later the journey was to some extent systematized. The Panama route subsequently became the usual and fas.h.i.+onable way to travel. The s.h.i.+p companies learned how to handle and treat their patrons. In fact, it was said that every jewelry shop in San Francisco carried a large stock of fancy silver speaking-trumpets because of the almost invariable habit of presenting one of these to the captain of the s.h.i.+p by his grateful pa.s.sengers. One captain swore that he possessed eighteen of them!

CHAPTER VIII

THE DIGGINGS

The two streams of immigrants, by sea and overland, thus differed, on the average, in kind. They also landed in the country at different points. The overlanders were generally absorbed before they reached San Francisco. They arrived first at Fort Sutter, whence they distributed themselves; or perhaps they even stopped at one or another of the diggings on their way in.

Of those coming by sea all landed at San Francisco. A certain proportion of the younger and more enthusiastic set out for the mines, but only after a few days had given them experience of the new city and had impressed them with at least a subconscious idea of opportunity. Another certain proportion, however, remained in San Francisco without attempting the mines. These were either men who were discouraged by pessimistic tales, men who had sickened of the fever, or more often men who were attracted by the big opportunities for wealth which the city then afforded. Thus at once we have two different types to consider, the miner and the San Franciscan.

The mines were worked mostly by young men. They journeyed up to the present Sacramento either by river-boats or afoot. Thence they took their outfits into the diggings. It must have seemed a good deal like a picnic. The goal was near; rosy hope had expanded to fill the horizon; breathless antic.i.p.ation pervaded them-a good deal like a hunting-party starting off in the freshness of the dawn.

The diggings were generally found at the bottoms of the deep river-beds and ravines. Since trails, in order to avoid freshets and too many crossings of the water-courses, took the higher shoulder of the hill, the newcomer ordinarily looked down upon his first glimpse of the mines. The sight must have been busy and animated. The miners dressed in bright-colored garments, and dug themselves in only to the waist or at most to the shoulders before striking bed rock, so that they were visible as spots of gaudy color. The camps were placed on the hillsides or little open flats, and occasionally were set in the bed of a river. They were composed of tents, and of rough log or bark structures.

The newcomers did not spend much time in establis.h.i.+ng themselves comfortably or luxuriously. They were altogether too eager to get at the actual digging. There was an immense excitement of the gamble in it all. A man might dig for days without adequate results and then of a sudden run into a rich pocket. Or he might pan out an immense sum within the first ten minutes of striking his pick to earth. No one could tell. The fact that the average of all the days and all the men amounted to very little more than living wages was quite lost to sight. At first the methods were very crude. One man held a coa.r.s.e screen of willow branches which he shook continuously above an ordinary cooking pot, while his partner slowly shovelled earth over this impromptu sieve. When the pots were filled with siftings, they were carried to the river, where they were carefully submerged, and the contents were stirred about with sticks. The light earth was thus flowed over the rims of the pots. The residue was then dried, and the lighter sand was blown away. The result was gold, though of course with a strong mixture of foreign substance. The pan miners soon followed; and the cradle or rocker with its riffle-board was not long delayed. The digging was free. At first it was supposed that a new holding should not be started within fifteen feet of one already in operation. Later, claims of a definite size were established. A camp, however, made its own laws in regard to this and other matters.

Most of the would-be miners at first rather expected to find gold lying on the surface of the earth, and were very much disappointed to learn that they actually had to dig for it. Moreover, digging in the boulders and gravel, under the terrific heat of the California sun in midsummer, was none too easy; and no matter how rich the diggings averaged-short of an actual bonanza-the miner was disappointed in his expectations. One man is reported saying: ”They tell me I can easily make there eleven hundred dollars a day. You know I am not easily moved by such reports. I shall be satisfied if I make three hundred dollars per day.” Travelers of the time comment on the contrast between the returning stream of discouraged and disgruntled men and the cheerfulness of the lot actually digging. n.o.body had any scientific system to go on. Often a divining-rod was employed to determine where to dig. Many stories were current of accidental finds; as when one man, tiring of waiting for his dog to get through digging out a ground squirrel, pulled the animal out by the tail, and with it a large nugget. Another story is told of a sailor who asked some miners resting at noon where he could dig and as a joke was directed to a most improbable side hill. He obeyed the advice, and uncovered a rich pocket. With such things actually happening, naturally it followed that every report of a real or rumored strike set the miners crazy. Even those who had good claims always suspected that they might do better elsewhere. It is significant that the miners of that day, like hunters, always had the notion that they had come out to California just one trip too late for the best pickings.

The physical life was very hard, and it is no wonder that the stragglers back from the mines increased in numbers as time went on. It was a true case of survival of the fittest. Those who remained and became professional miners were the hardiest, most optimistic, and most persistent of the population. The mere physical labor was very severe. Any one not raised as a day laborer who has tried to do a hard day's work in a new garden can understand what pick and shovel digging in the bottoms of gravel and boulder streams can mean. Add to this the fact that every man overworked himself under the pressure of excitement; that he was up to his waist in the cold water from the Sierra snows, with his head exposed at the same time to the tremendous heat of the California sun; throw in for good measure that he generally cooked for himself, and that his food was coa.r.s.e and badly prepared; and that in his own mind he had no time to attend to the ordinary comforts and decencies of life. It can well be imagined that a man physically unfit must soon succ.u.mb. But those who survived seemed to thrive on these hards.h.i.+ps.

California camps by their very quaint and whimsical names bear testimony to the overflowing good humor and high spirits of the early miners. No one took anything too seriously, not even his own success or failure. The very hardness of the life cultivated an ability to s.n.a.t.c.h joy from the smallest incident. Some of the joking was a little rough, as when some merry jester poured alcohol over a bully's head, touched a match to it, and chased him out of camp yelling, ”Man on fire-put him out!” It is evident that the time was not one for men of very refined or sensitive nature, unless they possessed at bottom the strong iron of character. The ill-balanced were swept away by the current of excitement, and fell readily into dissipation. The pleasures were rude; the life was hearty; vices unknown to their possessors came to the surface. The most significant tendency, and one that had much to do with later social and political life in California, was the leveling effect of just this hard physical labor. The man with a strong back and the most persistent spirit was the superior of the man with education but with weaker muscles. Each man, finding every other man compelled to labor, was on a social equality with the best. The usual superiority of head-workers over hand-workers disappeared. The low-grade man thus felt himself the equal, if not the superior, of any one else on earth, especially as he was generally able to put his hand on what were to him comparative riches. The pride of employment disappeared completely. It was just as honorable to be a cook or a waiter in a restaurant as to dispense the law,-where there was any. The period was brief, but while it lasted, it produced a true social democracy. Nor was there any pretense about it. The rudest miner was on a plane of perfect equality with lawyers, merchants, or professional men. Some men dressed in the very height of style, decking themselves out with all the minute care of a dandy; others were not ashamed of, nor did they object to being seen in, ragged garments. No man could be told by his dress.

The great day of days in a mining-camp was Sunday. Some over-enthusiastic fortune-seekers worked the diggings also on that day; but by general consent-uninfluenced, it may be remarked, by religious considerations-the miners repaired to their little town for amus.e.m.e.nt and relaxation. These little towns were almost all alike. There were usually two or three combined hotels, saloons, and gambling-houses, built of logs, of slabs, of canvas, or of a combination of the three. There was one store that dispensed whiskey as well as dryer goods, and one or two large places of amus.e.m.e.nt. On Sunday everything went full blast. The streets were crowded with men; the saloons were well patronized; the gambling games ran all day and late into the night. Wrestling-matches, jumping-matches, other athletic tests, horse-races, lotteries, fortune-telling, singing, anything to get a pinch or two of the dust out of the good-natured miners-all these were going strong. The American, English, and other continentals mingled freely, with the exception of the French, who kept to themselves. Successful Germans or Hollanders of the more stupid cla.s.s ran so true to type and were so numerous that they earned the generic name of ”Dutch Charley.” They have been described as moon-faced, bland, bullet-headed men, with walrus moustaches, and fatuous, placid smiles. Value meant nothing to them. They only knew the difference between having money and having no money. They carried two or three gold watches at the end of long home-made chains of gold nuggets fastened together with links of copper wire. The chains were sometimes looped about their necks, their shoulders, and waists, and even hung down in long festoons. When two or three such Dutch Charleys inhabited one camp, they became deadly rivals in this childlike display, parading slowly up and down the street, casting malevolent glances at each other as they pa.s.sed. Shoals of phrenologists, fortune-tellers, and the like, generally drunken old reprobates on their last legs, plied their trades. One artist, giving out under the physical labor of mining, built up a remarkably profitable trade in sketching portraits. Incidentally he had to pay two dollars and a half for every piece of paper! John Kelly, a wandering minstrel with a violin, became celebrated among the camps, and was greeted with enthusiasm wherever he appeared. He probably made more with his fiddle than he could have made with his shovel. The influence of the ”forty-two caliber whiskey” was dire, and towards the end of Sunday the sports became pretty rough.

This day was also considered the time for the trial of any cases that had arisen during the week. The miners elected one of their number to act as presiding judge in a ”miners' meeting.” Justice was dealt out by this man, either on his own authority with the approval of the crowd, or by popular vote. Disputes about property were adjudicated as well as offenses against the criminal code. Thus a body of precedent was slowly built up. A new case before the alcalde of Hangtown was often decided on the basis of the procedure at Grub Gulch. The decisions were characterized by direct common sense. It would be most interesting to give adequate examples here, but s.p.a.ce forbids. Suffice it to say that a Mexican horse-thief was convicted and severely flogged; and then a collection was taken up for him on the ground that he was on the whole unfortunate. A thief apprehended on a steamboat was punished by a heavy fine for the benefit of a sick man on board.

Sunday evening usually ended by a dance. As women were entirely lacking at first, a proportion of the men was told off to represent the fair s.e.x. At one camp the invariable rule was to consider as ladies those who possessed patches on the seats of their trousers. This was the distinguis.h.i.+ng mark. Take it all around, the day was one of noisy, good-humored fun. There was very little sodden drunkenness, and the miners went back to their work on Monday morning with freshened spirits. Probably just this sort of irresponsible ebullition was necessary to balance the hardness of the life.

In each mining-town was at least one Yankee storekeeper. He made the real profits of the mines. His buying ability was considerable; his buying power was often limited by what he could get hold of at the coast and what he could transport to the camps. Often his consignments were quite arbitrary and not at all what he ordered. The story is told of one man who received what, to judge by the smell, he thought was three barrels of spoiled beef. Throwing them out in the back way, he was interested a few days later to find he had acquired a rapidly increasing flock of German scavengers. They seemed to be investigating the barrels and carrying away the spoiled meat. When the barrels were about empty, the storekeeper learned that the supposed meat was in reality sauerkraut!

The outstanding fact about these camps was that they possessed no solidarity. Each man expected to exploit the diggings and then to depart for more congenial climes. He wished to undertake just as little responsibility as he possibly could. With so-called private affairs other than his own he would have nothing to do. The term private affairs was very elastic, stretching often to cover even cool-blooded murder. When matters arose affecting the whole public welfare in which he himself might possibly become interested, he was roused to the point of administering justice. The punishments meted out were fines, flogging, banishment, and, as a last resort, lynching. Theft was considered a worse offense than killing. As the mines began to fill up with the more desperate characters who arrived in 1850 and 1851, the necessity for government increased. At this time, but after the leveling effect of universal labor had had its full effect, the men of personality, of force and influence, began to come to the front. A fresh aristocracy of ability, of influence, of character was created.