I remember him well,
seated with his elbows on the table in front of him, his chin between
his hands, and looking the picture of despair. At last he broke out, "I
wish I had taken my father's advice; he wanted me to go into the navy;
if I had done so, I should not have had to go to sea so much." Poor
Slaughter! it was his last sea voyage. He was killed by Indians in
Oregon.
By the last of August the cholera had so abated that it was deemed safe
to start. The disease did not break out again on the way to California,
and we reached San Francisco early in September.
CHAPTER XV.
SAN FRANCISCO--EARLY CALIFORNIA EXPERIENCES--LIFE ON THE PACIFIC COAST
--PROMOTED CAPTAIN--FLUSH TIMES IN CALIFORNIA.
San Francisco at that day was a lively place. Gold, or placer digging
as it was called, was at its height. Steamers plied daily between San
Francisco and both Stockton and Sacramento. Passengers and gold from the
southern mines came by the Stockton boat; from the northern mines by
Sacramento. In the evening when these boats arrived, Long Wharf--there
was but one wharf in San Francisco in 1852--was alive with people
crowding to meet the miners as they came down to sell their "dust" and
to "have a time.
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