and when I went on board, expecting to hear of her starting again on the morrow or next day, the captain told me, he did not know if the ship ever would leave the harbour, at least with these passengers, for they had tried to take his life and he was going to have the case tried. The passengers for their part said, that they were going to sue him for treating them badly, and insulting them, principally a lady on board, and trying to starve them on the voyage. In fact, things seemed to be in a pretty mess on board.

But matters soon cooled down; the Russian consul (an English gentleman in town, I have forgotten his name), as the Reform,' sailed under Russian colours, had them all a couple of times before him; the captain agreed to lay in some fresh provisions, the passengers were warned to behave themselves, and deliver up all the arms they had in their possession. And eight days afterwards we sailed, for the quarrel lasted so long; and I believe it would have lasted even longer, had not those who had had the most to say, been the first to run short of money, and having no dollars left to spend, they now wanted to get away from here as soon as possible.

Our passage to California was in general a good one; we ran out to the west from the first start, expecting the north-west winds afterwards, which were said to prevail in the higher latitudes, but

course.

north and north-north-east winds instead set in, and being carried by these farther westward than we had expected, we were taken a little out of our Higher up, the breeze, however, became more favourable, and we entered, after beating for about three days off and on the Californian coast, the longed-for entrance of the Bay of San Francisco, the so-called “golden gate of California.”

CALIFORNIA.

CHAPTER I.

SAN FRANCISCO.

WITH my passage through the Golden Gate, a perfectly new phase of my life commenced; but instead of giving such an important step a serious thought, lest we might jump head over heels into this new chaos, to which history never yet had furnished a parallel-though none of us would have been the worse for reflection, none of us thought of such a thing. Each minute produced a new and ever-varying picture, which rose, as it seemed, from the ground around us, and we felt as men might, who have sat for long months in prisons and then stepped suddenly into the free and dazzling light of the sun-it was a very natural thing that we should try first to accustom our eyes to the strange light, all the rest would come in regular succession.

The Golden Gate is really a splendid entrance to such a bay as San Francisco; it bears some resemblance to the heads of Port Jackson, except that the mountains are higher here, and the country looked even wilder; but the English reader has had descriptions enough about it, and I should much prefer taking him back to our own ship, to commence with me the new, and if wearisome, most certainly wild and interesting life.

The passengers had crowded on the fore part of the vessel, and we looked first for tents and huts along the shore, and numerous herds of cattle and horses gladdened our eyes-such things look well after a long voyage.

"There is a tent," the cry suddenly rose"there, close to those little dark bushes; and over there again there is a quantity of them; that must be a town," and with such acclamations the attention of the new gold diggers was called now to one, now to the other shore; and an hour later a fresh breeze, and the extraordinarily strong tide that flows here, carried us speedily up into the bay and towards the hill, on whose brow the first huts of San Francisco itself already became visible.

"But I can't see anybody washing," some disappointed voice cried from the forecastle, “donnerwetter! is there any room left on shore." The good man seemed to fear he would be crowded here on the hills.

"There are diggers-there they are washing!" another suddenly cried, and with lightning speed this cry was caught up by fifty other voices; the men seemed perfectly happy at having already found gold-diggers on shore and with them a kind of assurance of the reality of the thing, till we drew a little nearer the spot, and found in the sppposed gold-hunters a couple of quiet cows, which had been looking for grass instead of gold in the small valley.

But San Francisco itself now attracted all our glances. There to the right, on that flat and naked hill more and more tents and low wooden buildings became visible, the hill itself yet concealing the greatest part, and now-mast on mast-a perfect forest of them opened at once to our sight. Ship after ship, forming a perfect town upon the water, filled the inner bay, and hundreds of little boats and small sailing craft were darting everywhere over the yet unoccupied places. With this, the tents and houses-riders appearing on the tops of the hills—the more widely spreading town-the eye found no time to take in all at once the strange novelty which surrounded us, and we stood a long while perfectly bewildered, before single objects in our immediate neighbourhood obtained their rightful share of attention.

Captain Meyer of the 'Talisman' pulled out to us from his own ship, which now lay in sight of