Kanakas from the
Sandwich Islands, and Chinese from Canton and Hong Kong. All seemed,
in hurrying to and fro, to be busily occupied and in a state of
pleasurable excitement. Everything needed for their wants; food,
clothing, and lodging-quarters, and everything required for
transportation and mining, were in urgent demand and obtained
extravagant prices. Yet no one seemed to complain of the charges made.
There was an apparent disdain of all attempts to cheapen articles
and reduce prices. News from the East was eagerly sought from all new
comers. Newspapers from New York were sold at a dollar apiece. I had a
bundle of them, and seeing the price paid for such papers, I gave them
to a fellow-passenger, telling him he might have half he could get for
them. There were sixty-four numbers, if I recollect aright, and
the third day after our arrival, to my astonishment he handed me
thirty-two dollars, stating that he had sold them all at a dollar
apiece. Nearly everything else brought a similarly extravagant price.
And this reminds me of an experience of my own with some chamois
skins. Before I left New York, I purchased a lot of stationery and the
usual accompaniments of a writing-table, as I intended to practise
my profession in California. The stationer, learning from some remark
made by my brother Cyrus, who was with me at the time, that I intended
to go to California, said that I ought to buy some chamois skins in
which to wrap the stationery, as they would be needed there to make
bags for carrying gold-dust. Upon this suggestion, I bought a dozen
skins for ten dollars. On unpacking my trunk, in Marysville, these
chamois skins were of course exposed, and a gentleman calling at the
tent, which I then occupied, asked me what I would take for them. I
answered by inquiring what he would give for them. He replied at once,
an ounce apiece. My astonishment nearly choked me, for an ounce was
taken for sixteen dollars; at the mint, it often yielded eighteen or
nineteen dollars in coin. I, of course, let the skins go, and blessed
the hunter who brought the chamois down. The purchaser made bags
of the skins, and the profit to him from their sale amounted to two
ounces on each skin. From this transaction, the story arose that I
had sold porte-monnaies in Marysville before practising law, which is
reported in the interesting book of Messrs. Barry and Patten, entitled
"Men and Memories of San Francisco in the Spring of 1850." The story