. He
had fainted. Some parties had helped him up; evidently pickpockets had
taken that opportunity to rob him; his gold was all gone. I explained
his case to Captain Porter, but nothing could be done. There was no way
to identify his gold dust from any other; it was all alike. When he
arrived in New York, he would have to go to the hospital until he got
well enough to ship on some other vessel for $14 per month, and not be
able to return to his wife and children with his gold, and make them
happy, while these black-hearted villainsillians were spending his
money, his hard earnings of years. I entered in a bond, with myself,
that if I were ever on a jury I would never show any mercy to a thief.

As we were sailing along many ships and schooners came in sight. We were
evidently nearing the great port of New York. The land of Staten Island
soon came in sight covered with snow. It was late in the fall. It was
the first I had seen since my departure from the same port, except on
the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Here ends my personal
adventures of the days of the Forty-niners, to be continued by the
peroration on California.

PERORATION.

On my return, in looking over my finances, I was no poorer than when I
left. It must be evident to the reader that I had acquired no wealth to
astonish my friends with my riches, which was the visionary expectation
of the early pioneers to the gold Eldorado. I have been writing from
personal recollections of events that occurred forty-five years ago. Of
course, there was nothing in my enterprises, or the little fluctuations
of fortune that would be of particular interest to any one; but in the
form of a personal narrative, it was the only way I could recall
vividly to my mind, the events of so long ago. There were a series of
articles published in the _Century_ magazine two years ago, which I read
with great interest, for they were truthful, but no book has ever been
published that took in fully those two years when common labor was $16
per day, payable in gold. Such an event was never known to occur before,
and probably never will again. I have not drawn on my imagination in the
least in this narrative. I have simply attempted to portray from memory
events that actually occurred under my own observation. Any Forty-niner
will concede the truth of my narrative. I did not return to California
as I had expected. Cupid's arrow pierced my heart in the person of a
young lady,