We were entering the Golden Gate.  It was but four miles to the harbor where we cast anchor, opposite the city of San Francisco, which was the goal of our hopes for so long a time, and which was about to be realized; which was also the objective point from almost every part of the world where adventurers are seeking to get.  We had come three thousand, five hundred miles since we left Panama.  We engaged a row-boat to take us ashore.  My friend attended to getting my baggage out of the boat, and went with me to the shore.  He had signed no papers, and entered into no bonds not to desert the vessel at San Francisco, as the other sailors had.  He was free to do as he pleased.

I had the chills and fever all the way up, from the effects of the Panama fever.  My first idea was to get in good quarters, whatever expense, to regain my health.  I was informed that there was a good hotel kept by a widow woman on Montgomery street, where we landed.  Some of the other passengers were going to stop there.  I inquired the terms.  They said $5 per day.  I thought I would try it for a while.  My sleeping-room was a mattress laid on the floor, with muslin partitions to separate us from the next room.  The table was very indifferent, no vegetables, which I required, which we lacked on the ship coming up.  Being in poor health, I needed them.  After being there a few days one of our passengers asked me if I knew what the charges were.  I said yes, $5 per day.  He said it was more; I had better ask again, which I did.  I was informed it was $5 for the room and extra for the meals.  I paid my bill and looked out for other quarters.  I had brought in my baggage an Indian rubber mattress and pillow which was folded up in a small space and could be blown up with your breath and filled with air, made a soft bed, a pair of new Mackinaw blankets and other things to provide for any contingency, and took my meals at a restaurant, which were numerous, including the Chinese which we often patronized, and found myself satisfactorily quartered.  It may not be inappropriate to make some general remarks about the history of California.

Although my subject is strictly on the days of forty-niners, which consisted of about two years from the discovery of the gold, when it was supposed that the future prosperity of the country depended exclusively on the mining interest.  How different it has turned out since has nothing to do with my subject.  I want to try to paint to the mind of the reader the condition of California at that time, and the views of the pioneers in those days.  I am doing it in the form of a personal narrative, as it enables me more distinctly to recall to my mind the events of those days in which I was a participant.  Such fluctuations of fortune as then occurred, the world never saw before in the same space of time, and probably never will again, where common labor was $16 per day.  There were some very interesting and truthful articles published in the Century magazine two years