Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Burt, sc.
THE LAND OF GOLD;
OR,
Three Years in California.
PREFACE.
Many events of moment occurred in California during myresidence of three years in that country, and which were sketchedin a journal kept by me at the time. They are interspersed withanecdotes and incidents of a less general concern, but whichmay not be without some interest with the reader, as affording aclue to the leading features of society, and traits of individualcharacter. The circle of engaging objects in a community, justemerging into the refinements of civilization, is never broad;but every phase in the great change going on possesses an intenseindividuality, and leaves its ineffaceable impression, like aship sweeping a solitary sea, or a bird scaling a sunset cloud.California will be no more what she has been: the events of afew years have carried her through the progressive changes of acentury. She has sprung at once from the shackles of colonialservitude to all the advantages and dignities of a sovereignstate.
Her emigrants are rushing from every continent and isle; theycrest every mountain, they cover every sea; they sweep in likea cloud from the Pacific, they roll down like a torrent from theslopes of the Sierra Nevada. They crowd to her bosom togather gold; their hammers and drills, their mattocks and spadesdivert the deep stream, and are echoed from a thousand cavernedhills; the level plain, the soarin