Mountains and molehills; or, Recollections of a burnt journal

I landed with as much expedition as possible, and commenced at once to bargain for a canoe to take me up the river. This I at last effected at an exorbitant price, and on the ex...

The fire was fast subsiding; and as the embers died away, and the heavy smoke rolled off to leeward, the site of the conflagration was plainly marked out to the spectator like a...

Great labour and capital have been expended on the wharves of San Francisco; there is little space left between these, and ships ride at their sides, and discharge their cargoes...

Leaving Sonoma at daylight, we passed through the Sonoma Valley, which in many places, but a few hundred yards in width and studded with groups of oaks and flowering evergreens,...

The capabilities of Santa Rosa Valley had not been overlooked by the early missionaries, and the house now occupied by Don Raymond had been built by them. The object of these pr...

The country which we now traversed consisted of a series of small round-topped hills, uniform in size but varying in feature. The whole had been long since subjected to violent...

To render agreeable a life where men are thrown entirely on their own resources, the chief point is to ensure contentment, and nothing conduces more to this end than to apportio...

It was long after dark when I arrived at Santa Rosa Valley, perfectly “knocked up.” Englishmen are generally good pedestrians; but there is a great difference between walking on...

At daylight the next morning we found ourselves among the shipping that lay moored in crowds in front of San Francisco. Whilst threading our way to the wharf, we narrowly escape...

The Central Wharf of San Francisco, which is nearly a mile in length, is for some distance occupied on either side by Jew slopsellers; and, as these indefatigable gentlemen insi...

Our first duty, on arriving at Vallejo, was to erect a temporary shanty, and before we had been long there the materials for about fifty houses were scattered over the ground by...

Shortly after my return to Vallejo, a bright glare in the direction of San Francisco indicated too surely that the city was again in flames. The wind was very high, and we had e...

We reached the Salmon Fall diggings about noon, and, without halting, crossed a wooden bridge that had been built here on the north fork of the American River; we paid five doll...

So many reports had reached San Francisco at this time of the discovery, in various parts of the mining regions, of auriferous veins of quartz of immense wealth, that all that p...

Early the next morning I proceeded on horseback with Joe Bellow and an engineer to the mine, which was situated near a mining village called Tuttle-Town. To reach this spot we h...

In less than a fortnight we had a couple of canvas houses erected at Tuttle Town; each of these had a large fire-place and chimney, built of mud and stones, and surmounted by an...

The diggings in our immediate vicinity were not actively worked, as there was not sufficient water for the purpose; this, however, was shortly to be remedied, for companies comp...

In the course of three months we had collected two or three hundred tons of ore, and as the tests we daily made still bore out our preconceived opinions of the value of the mine...

The machinery was at length in its place, and we got the steam up for a trial; our engineer was one of the same school as he of the Stockton boat, and considered that engines we...

Rats are very numerous in San Francisco, as also are ratting-dogs. The roughest Skyes and most ferocious bull-dogs seem to have congregated in that city; and so much interest do...

We know that the militia of the United States is very numerous, inasmuch as it consists of every man capable of bearing arms; but it certainly would appear that all the officers...

As the rear of the town had been built on sand, at an elevation of some twenty feet above the new grade, the houses there had soon the appearance of being built on the edge of a...

The weather being fine, the roads were in tolerable order when we arrived at Panama; we made light, therefore, of the journey, and, having arrived at Gorgona, we dismounted from...

Seen opens. Distant Moon. View of Bey of Napels. A thin smoke rises. _It is the Beginning of the Eruction!_ The Napels folks begin to travel. Yaller fire, follered by silent thu...

Bey of Napels ’luminated by Bendola Lites. The lava gushes down. Through the smoke is seen the city in a state of conflagration. The last family! “_Whar is our parents?_” A red...

“I’ll soon be back, boys,” was my last remark, it will be remembered, as I parted from the Tuttletonians on the road; consequently, in the winter of 1852 I found myself at the I...