called Eldorado, fifteen by twenty feet, occupied mostly by gamblers brought the enormous yearly rent of $40,000.  ‘Miners’ Bank,’ used by Wright & Co., brokers, about half the size of a fire-engine house, was held at a rent of $75,000.  A gentleman who wished to find a law office, was shown a cellar in the earth, about twelve feet square and six feet deep, which he could have at $250 per month.  One of the common soldiers at the battle of San Pasquale was reputed to be among the millionaires of the place, and had an income of fifty thousand dollars monthly.

[Footnote 15:  J. Bayard Taylor’s ‘Eldorado.’]

“The prices paid for labor were in proportion to everything else.  The carman of Mellus Howard & Co., had a salary of $6000 a year, and many others made from fifteen to twenty dollars daily.  Servants were paid from a hundred to two hundred dollars a month.  This state of things, as might have been expected, did not long continue, for all things soon find their level, and the rapid importation of produce, materials and laborers, had soon the effect of lowering the prices to a fair and ordinary scale.

“California territory belongs to the United States of North America, and will, doubtless, in a short time, form several distinct states in that already powerful confederacy.”

MR. WILTON.  “Now, George, we have arrived at the Gulf of Georgia;—­you will not have very far to travel to the Rocky Mountains.”

CHARLES.  “The Gulf of Georgia is very considerable:  it divides Quadra or Vancouver’s Island from the continent, and communicates with the Pacific to the south by Claaset’s Straits, and to the north by Queen Charlotte’s Sound.  Quadra is a large island, and I think better known by the name of Nootka Sound, which is at the south end of the island, and contains an English establishment.”

MRS. WILTON.  “The natives of Nootka Sound are not an interesting people, and are greatly inferior to the other tribes inhabiting the continent.  They are short, plain-looking people, not unlike the Esquimaux.  Their ordinary dress consists of a mantle edged with fur at the top, and fringed at the bottom, which is made out of the bark of the pine, beaten into fibres.  Their food is mostly drawn from the sea.  Large stores of fish are dried and smoked, and the roes, prepared like caviare, form their winter bread.  They drink fish-oil, and mix it with their food.  The women go fishing occasionally, and are as skilful as the men; but their usual occupation is within doors, preparing the fabric of which their garments are composed.  Captain Cook, in speaking of their houses, says:  ’They are as filthy as hog-sties,—­everything in and about them stinking of fish, train-oil, and smoke.’”

GEORGE.  “I shall have to travel upwards of 600 miles to tell my story; but, as truth is worth seeking, I do not mind the trouble:  so here it is:—­

#Story of Boone and the Bear.#