and including
the Klondike, have been insignificant in comparison. I was in New York
at the time, and used to sit on the East river wharves, and see the
ships sailing away for distant California with an insatiable boyish
longing to join in the procession.

There was no way of reaching the promised land except by a voyage around
Cape Horn or an overland trip from western Missouri across the great
American desert, the Rocky and Sierra Nevada ranges of mountains, either
of which routes necessitated a weary and dangerous trip of nine months'
duration. The usual plan adopted in the East was to form a company of
about one hundred or more men, calculate the probable expense to each,
and divide it, purchase an old whaling ship, fit her up with bunks and
cooking appliances, and get an outfit and sail. Of course, there was
nothing involved in the enterprise but the departure, the voyage and the
arrival at San Francisco. No steamer had ever crossed the ocean at this
time, and all navigation was done in sailing ships. So great was the
rush that a scarcity of ships was soon felt. I remember distinctly on
one occasion, when an old played-out vessel, purchased by a party which
proposed to take out a printing press and start the first newspaper, was
seized by the maritime authorities and condemned as unseaworthy just as
she was leaving port. The next morning she was gone, and made one of the
quickest and most successful voyages of the emigration. It is a curious
fact that, out of all the ships that enlisted in this hazardous
enterprise, not one was lost or seriously damaged.

The overland route involved more dangers and hardships than the one by
sea. Many people died on the way from exhaustion and disease, and many
were killed by the Indians, but the emigration never ceased, or even
lessened, from these reasons. I have followed the trails made by these
emigrants in the Sierra Nevadas, and it seemed almost impossible that
animals could have climbed the precipitous mountain slopes they
encountered. These hardships, however, did not go unrewarded, because to
enjoy the distinction of being a "Forty-niner" was ever afterwards a
badge of nobility on the Pacific Coast.

It was not long, under this vast influx of immigration, before
California became a well settled state, and its business relations with
the rest of the country, or as it was then called, "The States," became
very extensive and important, and the difficulty of intercommunicat