onaires of the place, and had an income of fifty
thousand dollars monthly.

[Footnote 15: J. Bayard Taylor's 'Eldorado.']

"The prices paid for labor were in proportion to everything else.
The carman of Mellus Howard & Co., had a salary of $6000 a year, and
many others made from fifteen to twenty dollars daily. Servants were
paid from a hundred to two hundred dollars a month. This state of
things, as might have been expected, did not long continue, for all
things soon find their level, and the rapid importation of produce,
materials and laborers, had soon the effect of lowering the prices
to a fair and ordinary scale.

"California territory belongs to the United States of North America,
and will, doubtless, in a short time, form several distinct states
in that already powerful confederacy."

MR. WILTON. "Now, George, we have arrived at the Gulf of
Georgia;--you will not have very far to travel to the Rocky
Mountains."

CHARLES. "The Gulf of Georgia is very considerable: it divides
Quadra or Vancouver's Island from the continent, and communicates
with the Pacific to the south by Claaset's Straits, and to the north
by Queen Charlotte's Sound. Quadra is a large island, and I think
better known by the name of Nootka Sound, which is at the south end
of the island, and contains an English establishment."

MRS. WILTON. "The natives of Nootka Sound are not an interesting
people, and are greatly inferior to the other tribes inhabiting the
continent. They are short, plain-looking people, not unlike the
Esquimaux. Their ordinary dress consists of a mantle edged with fur
at the top, and fringed at the bottom, which is made out of the bark
of the pine, beaten into fibres. Their food is mostly drawn from the
sea. Large stores of fish are dried and smoked, and the roes,
prepared like caviare, form their winter bread. They drink fish-oil,
and mix it with their food. The women go fishing occasionally, and
are as skilful as the men; but their usual occupation is within
doors, preparing the fabric of which their garments are composed.
Captain Cook, in speaking of their houses, says: 'They are as filthy
as hog-sties,--everything in and about them stinking of fish,
train-oil, and smoke.'"

GEORGE. "I shall have to travel upwards of 600 miles to tell my
story; but, as truth is worth seeking, I do not mind the trouble: so
here it is:--

#Story of Boone and the Bear.#

"A young man named Boone, son of the mighty American hunter,