SHAW'S GOLDEN DREAMS AND WAXING REALITIES. *

Vsaious incidents and descriptions of sea and savage life are con- tained in this volume ; but the most interesting part is the picture of society in California when the report of its golden region was first noised abroad, and of the hardships encountered by the reck- less or desperate adventurers who flocked thither to make or mar their fortunes or end their days. The first conquerors of America did not undergo greater hardships, encounter greater dangers and labours, or exhibit greater greed. The modern congregation of gold-seekers displayed a selfishness, from which the bond of mili- tary discipline, the necessity of danger, and a common faith or common superstition, to some extent preserved the Spaniards.

Mr. Shaw was originally a midshipman in the Indian mercantile marine, but left his calling from a love of travel. In 1848 he emi- grated to Adelaide, and was in the receipt of an annual allowance, which we understand was to cease upon his leaving the colony. Finding no opening there, and tired of doing nothing, he thought of returning home, when the news arrived of the Californian El Dorado. Without loss of time he shipped on board a fast-sailing clipper for the land of promise; and arrived there, to suffer and see suffering such as in fiction would seem unnatural, and which nothing but youth and a capital constitution enabled Mr. Shaw to survive. From the first moment of his setting foot on shore at San Fran- cisco till he reembarked in the same vessel that brought him out, his career was one continued series of hardship, privation, and labour, with frequent danger and risk of life ; one half of which undergone in a civilized country would secure wealth. His passage from St Francisco to Stockton was made in an over-crowded craft, where there was not room to lie down, exposed to a burning sun by day and to chilling dews by night. To reach the diggings, he joined a sort of caravan, where the principle of "every one for himself" was carried out in perfection: even men who sank from fatigue and want of water were left to perish in the wilderness,—which was

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perhaps nevitable,—but when water was reached not a moment was wasted in bestowing a thought on comrades whom assistance might have rescued. At the diggings, Mr. Shaw and a shipmate, with a Malay lad and a Chinese as followers, fell to work, and did pretty well so far as getting gold ; but theirs was the fate of every one who has told his story : the expenses nearly absorbed the gams. The rainy season set in soon and violently : it became impossible to work ; sickness overtook the party in common with the mass of the diggers; when Mr. Shaw recovered, he found it was simply to return nearly empty-handed, or to remain and starve if he escaped death by disease. With a resolute will, and a strength of constitution such as few possess, he started alone, to walk back to Stockton ; and thence by the permission of some sailors he rowed his passage back to Francisco. There, in ignorance

• Golden Dreams and Waking Realities being the Adventures of a Gold-Seeker In California and the Pacific Islands. By William Shaw. Published by Smith and Elder.

of any handicraft, he lived by hard labour, till he got a sort of wait- er's berth at a mission-house turned into a tavern, and kept by a Moimon, whose sleeping partner was a Romish priest. From this state he was rescued by the offer of a free passage in his old ship, which had been detained for want of hands. This offer he gladly accepted, and sailed for Sydney in the Mazeppa, calling in his way at the Sandwich and Navigator's Islands. The fortunate desertion which detained the Mazeppa, in company with a good many others, took place directly on their arrival, leav- ing officers and supercargo to discharge the cargo. The crew were Malays and vanished within some twenty-four hours of the arrival at San Francisco.

" Our little vessel threading its way in, we dropped anchor on the lee of a Dutch ship, the Burgomaster Jansen. The first boat which boarded us came from a Sydney vessel, the doctor and mate of which were plying about the harbour as watermen ; they came to offer us information respecting the country. A customhouse-officer came on board the same evening, who levied a poll-tax of one dollar on each passenger ; duly registering our names as citizens of California. " About midnight we were awakened by an attempt of four of the Malaya to escape in the whale-boat ; which was prevented by the vigilance of the mate. Next morning, however, the gig was missing : it had conveyed some of them ashore, and we perceived it lying high and dry on the beach. The captain, who prided himself upon the awe in which the crew held him, went ashore, pulled by four of his men, saying that he should pay his respects to the authorities, and bring back the deserters in irons ; but on his return to the beach he found the boat's crew gone, and was compelled to come on board in a waterman's boat ; which he did in a towering passion. The fol- lowing night the ship's boats were hauled on board; but the rest of the crew escaped by floating ashore on stray planks. The tide being impetuous, run- ning six knots, some were upset, and drifted lifeless on the beach : the old Serang was among the number who perished through thirst for gold."

The misery of avarice amidst all its wealth has been a theme for poets and moralists; but the reality surpasses the imagination : a few sentences of our adventurer, noting what struck him, surpasses poetry.

"It would be difficult to describe my sensations after the first day's ram- ble in Francisco. I had witnessed so many startling sights, that had I not been well assured of their reality, I might have imagined them phantasies of the brain : buildings were springing up 'as at the stroke of an enchant- er's wand' ; valuable merchandise was strewed about in every direction; men of every costume and colour—Down-Easters with sharp-set faces, sal- low Southerners, gaunt Western squatters, vivacious Frenchmen, sedate Ger- mans, sturdy English colonists, Californians and Chiliaus, Mexicans, Ha- nakas and C,elestials—hurried to and fro, pursuing their various avocations; and business to an incalculable amount seemed to be transacted. Looking at the rude sign-boards inscribed in various languages, glancing at the chaos of articles exposed for sale, and listening to the various dialects spoken, the city seemed a complete Babel. 'Gold was evidently the mainspring of all this activity. Tables piled with gold were seen under tents, whence issued melodious strains of music ; and the most exaggerated statements were current respecting the auriferous regions. But amid scenes of profusion and extravagance, no sign of order or comfort was perceptible, nor did any one appear happy : wan anxious coun- tenances, and restless eager eyes, met you on every side.

"The aspect of personal neglect and discomfort, filth, rags, and squalor, combined with uneasiness, avidity, and recklessness of manner, an all- absorbing selfishness, as if each were striving against his fellow man, were characteristics of the gold fever, at once repulsive and pitiable ; and, not- withstanding the gold I saw on every side, a feeling of despondency crept in- sensibly over me."

Francisco at that time was not the place for pausing to think what your right hand could find to do ; you must do something at once. Mr. Shaw followed the examples about him and began busi- ness as soon as he landed his effects : this was Ls first day and night at San Francisco.

'Having landed our baggage on the beach, finding we could not obtain safe stowage and that it was not the custom of the country, nor indeed prac- ticable, to retain a superfluity of clothing, four of us agreed to erect an awn- ing of sheets, and dispose therein of our stock of wearing apparel to the best advantage to passers-by. So, constructing shelves and a counter of stray planks, we emptied our trunks of their contents, and exposed the articles to view. I realized by the sale of my personal effects seventy dollars. The beach around was covered with cast-off clothing; varnished French boots, satin and silk waistcoats, and similar luxurious but unfit articles of apparel, being discarded for others of more serviceable and durable materials. Boxes arid baggage were perched on the ledges of the cliff, as safe from being pillaged as if they had been guarded; severe and summary laws against felony deterring the most knavish from stealing. "One of my shipmates, having a few barrels of spirits, proposed retailing them in conjunction with myself. Being unable to procure a tent for our temporary grog-store, we run a few posts in the ground, nailing quilts around and above for covering. On the first night of sleeping under our shelter, my comrade, who had been drinking in company with some Mexicans during the day, fell asleep with a pipe in his mouth; and at midnight I was aroused by a suffocating smoke which filled the place, his clothes having caught fire. In trying to put out the flames, which had reached the quilts, the frame- work of our ' stare came down upon us ; my comrade, completely inebriated, lay on the ground insensible of danger ; so, pulling him by the leg from under- neath the burning canopy, I extinguished the fire. I then wandered about till daylight, inwardly resolving never to associate in an undertaking with a man given to habits of intoxication. The morning was bitterly cold, and when I returned my shipmate lay as I left him. The dew and cold had somewhat sobered him, however ; and after sundry admonitions I left him. Thus passed my first night in California."

The horrors of Milton's lazar-house were equalled if not sur- passed by those of the hospital at Stockton, as Mr. Shaw saw it on his return : the selfish neglect of man was added to the horrors of disease.

"Once more my own master, I indulged myself in a stroll through the town. In the centre of it was a silent and sombre tenement, without win- dows or any show of goods; it was about eighty feet long by fifteen in width, made of tarred canvass, in shape similar to a gambling tent Pushing back a canvass door, the light of two slush lamps at some distance apart showed it to be a hospital. About thirty people, afflicted with sickness in every shape, lay closely packed on each side; the wet was dripping in from the roof, anal most of them lay on straw shaken out on the earth, with only their blankets thrown over them. It was indeed a chamber of horrors; groans, lamenta- tions, and ravings of delirium, arose on every side. People of various coun- tries, classes, and colour, struck down with disease, were left almost =eared

for. The public eye having at length' been shocked by the numbers of suf- ferers who lay prostrate in the streets, and on the very thresholds of their doors, a receptacle was at last provided for the Lazarus at their gates; not one where they could be comfortably attended to and cured, but where they might be removed from open view to die out of sight : a doctor attended twice a day, taking a cursory view of them, but nurses there were none. " Prompted by curiosity to view the wretched inmates, I walked down the room between the rows of the sick. Observing two of them to be motionless, I leant over; the touch of the skin told me that one was a corpse, the other was all but dead : the quickness and difficulty of breathing, and the coldness of the extremities, showed that life was gradually departing. A man who lay betwixt them, suffering from a barbarous wound in the abdomen from a bowie-knife, received in a drunken affray, told me that the day before three corpses had been moved out, which had lain there three days, because the local authorities had not arranged how and whether to defray the expenses of burial.

"At the further end of the room I beheld an object which filled me with horror and dismay : taking one of the lamps to have a clearer view, I per- ceived my young shipmate, whom I had left at the cognac store; he was seated on the saw, plucking out and busily untwisting the threads of his quilt ; in an instant the sad conviction that he was deranged dashed upon me. His auburn hair hung long and uncombed over his forehead and shoul- ders; his countenance was wan, thin, and engrained with dirt; and his bloodshot and wandering eyes heightened his haggard appearance : he had on a coarse shirt and a faded satin waistcoat. I never witnessed a more for- lorn and melancholy spectacle than this unfortunate youth presented. Sit- ting down beside him, I waited till a ray of reason aiscovered me to him ; and at lucid intervals I gathered a few particulars of his history.

"After our departure, partly for want of customers and partly to drown his regret, he had recourse to the brandy-cask; the tent was afterwards sold to pay current expenses ; and having nothing further convertible into dol- lars, hard labour was his only alternative. His partner, unwilling to be en- cumbered with a helpless comrade, deserted him in this extremity : stung to the quick by such selfish and unfeeling conduct, dependent only upon his own exertions for a living, and disappointed in obtaining work, he under- went great privations ; despondency succeeded ; mental anxiety and hard- ships brought on fever and ague; and, being without friends, he must have perished from exposure and hunger had he not been conveyed to the asylum where I found him. Lying with wet clothing on wet straw, in the depth of winter, without a fire, and daily witnessing agonies and death around him, his mind gave way.

"Little food and medicine had been given him. I procured a loaf, which he ate ravenously. I staid with him some hours, listening to and talking with him, and affording him what comfort and consolation I could ; and though he was conscious of his rapid dissolution, he prayed me either to stay at Stockton, or to convey him on board the Mazeppa. When he relapsed into a state of insensibility, I hurried out of the wretched abode, found out the doctor, and stated the case to him ; urging the respectability of the pa- tient's friends, and stating that a handsome recompense would be bestowed if his health were restored and he conveyed to the ship. The calculating practitioner said, that considering his complaint, his recovery could not be reckoned upon; and that he was too far Down East to trust to the promise of a recompense.

"Finding it was useless to interfere further in his behalf, and my own af- fairs urgently requiring attention, I saw my poor shipmate but once after ; he was then totally deranged, and in other respects considerably worse. Subsequently, a letter from his quondam partner, sent to the Mazeppa, gave information of his death. Insanity, as may be supposed, is very frequent in this country; where the mind is liable to very violent shocks caused by sud- den reverses of fortune, privation, and danger."

The summary execution of Lynch-law in certain cases, and the general report of lawlessness, may seem contradictory ; yet they are not so when examined. Taking that which is acquired is promptly punished ; violence to get the means of acquiring is overlooked ; indeed it was not always safe to attempt to punish it. At the diggings a regular pitched battle took place between two rival claimants to some ground. "I viewed,' says Mr. Shaw, "the barbarous encounter from an eminence ; at its termination, when I visited the field of battle, I was horror-struck at the sanguinary atrocities which had been committed : some men lay with their entrails hanging out, others had their skulls smashed with the pick- axe, and bodies lopt with the axe ; while a few lay breathing their last, seemingly unscathed, but shot to death with bullets." National predilections, however, are the main thing which prompt to execu- tion or stay it. During his later sojourn at Francisco, Mr. Shaw found the body of a murdered man whose papers showed him to be an Irish sailor. The Mormon innkeeper advised him to say nothing about it; before the Alcidde, when he mentioned that the wounds had been inflicted by a bowie-knife, the American function- ary dismissed him with a similar hint to mind his own business. This is a picture of onesided justice during the journey to the diggings. The scene is Stockton.

'About this time there was a great deal of excitement respecting the ad- ministration of the laws. It had happened that an Emancipist from Van Die- men's Land, who had not been cured of his evil practices, had been tempted to steal a few articles of little value from a tent : a meeting was instantly convened, the case was summarily adjudicated, and the punishment of death was decreed. Appeals were made for mercy; but not even a respite could be obtained for the culprit ; who expiated his offence with his life twelve hours after it was committed, although a small felony is usually punished by the loss of an ear. I can only attribute this harsh judgment to the enmity which the lower class of Americans have to the British settlers of New Hol- land; those arriving from Sydney and other ports alike incur the odium of convictism, which naturally engenders a feeling of mutual dislike. The Bri- tish colonists invariably wore blue woollen shirts the Americans red ones ; colours thus became a badge of party, and each distrusted and avoided com- munication with the other.

"A fresh cause of commotion was the arrest and trial of a young man of good family from the States, who had wilfully shot a German dead with a revolver. A dispute as to the merits of their respective countries had arisen between them, and the German having passed certain severe strictures upon America, was pitched out of the tent ; he returned to retaliate ; when a re- volver was pointed at him, and on his advancing, a bullet pierced his ab- domen.

"The place allotted for the dispensation of justice was the hulk of a su- perannuated brig; the bulwarks had been raised, and an awning of canvass fore and aft served for a roof; around the after part, by the taffrail, sat the jurors, wearing beards of long growth, roughly attired, and armed with bowie-knives. They were seated in the most uneasy postures, sluirting pools of tobacco-juice, and twisting their legs about in contorted attitudes ; some actually turning their backs to the court. The Alcalde and his lawyer were

seated at a table in the centre, and the proceedings were opened by the State counsel ; who was apparently a gentleman, and stated the case, calling wit- nesses who clearly proved the prisoner's guilt. The lawyer for the defence was a character diametrically opposite, and from his peculiarities what would be termed a 'popular man' ; one who well understood the national weak- nesses of the Americans, and knew how to turn them to account. Without at- tempting to disprove the evidence, he skilfully pandered to the passions of his audience ; representing his client as a martyr, who endangered his life in defending the reputation of the Republic. Such flowers of rhetoric told ef- fectively ; the jury, if they had not made up their minds beforehand, were primed with excuses for perverting justice, and, as was expected, returned a verdict of Not guilty.' Indeed, such was the violence outside, that it was rather dangerous to express an opinion on the subject adverse to the cul- prit; I was therefore not surprised at the jury being afraid to condemn him.”

There are some sketches of a more incidental kind relating to California, and both the voyage out and home are well told ; but we have purposely confined our extracts to those subjects which con- vey an idea of the social state of California during the first stage of the gold fever.