money, and who was now taking
up in his boat machinery, supplies, miners, and general passengers, some
four hundred persons in all. The sailing from San Francisco, and the
scenes of farewell at the dock, were both amusing and impressive. Ready
exchanges of repartee between the ship and the dock were in order.
Passengers held up "pokes," small buckskin bags for gold-dust, and
cheerfully shouted to their friends that they would come back with their
"sacks" full. But there was about it all at the same time something not
altogether gay. It was no certain undertaking. The great majority, of
course, would not return successful, and it was not improbable that some
might not return at all.

I presume that the _Lane_ carried in its personnel an average assortment
of the eighteen thousand similarly brought to Nome; perhaps, however, a
higher average, due to the fact that many of its passengers went
legitimately to work in the employ of the Wild Goose Mining and Trading
Company, in which Mr. Lane is largely interested. Nevertheless,
students of human nature could there have found an ample field for
study in the array of adventurers, gamblers, pugilists, alleged actors
and actresses,--a nondescript male and female population, which might
very appropriately be collected under the term "grafters"--an expression
commonly used to designate individuals who ingraft themselves at the
expense of others. One of the first men we met was V----, who shared
accommodations with us. He was a practical miner, who had prospected
through nearly all of the Western States and parts of Alaska, and, like
the great majority, he was going to make a try at the new gold-fields,
with nothing assured, but with the determination to strike out somewhere
and "make it." It did not take long to learn that the real American
miner, the man who undergoes hardships and endures privations such as
but few people can know or understand, is a fine, intelligent, and
generous citizen, whom it is a pleasure to know.

On the 24th of May the ship steamed out of the Golden Gate and up the
coast, to stop _en route_ at Seattle for additional machinery, freight,
and passengers, though it was difficult to figure just where the latter
were to be distributed. All ages are subject to the gold fever. We met
aboard ship a gentleman of our own university, a classmate of Senator
Stewart, who, catching this fever in 1849, without waiting to graduate,
left New Haven with Mr. Stewart in 185