wide,
and they longed to see the gold-dust and nuggets with their own eyes.

"It's a beautiful land, intirely," exclaimed Larry O'Neil, with an
irrepressible shout of enthusiasm, which called forth a general cheer
from the men.

"Arrah, now," remarked another Patlander, "don't ye wish ye wos up to
the knees and elbows in the goolden sands already? Faix I'd give a
month's pay to have wan day at the diggin's."

"I don't believe a word about it--I don't," remarked Jones, with the
dogged air of a man who shouldn't, wouldn't, and didn't believe, and yet
felt, somehow, that he couldn't help it.

"Nother do I," said another, "It's all a sham; come, now, ain't it,
Bill?" he added, turning to a bronzed veteran who had visited California
two years before.

"A sham!" exclaimed Bill. "I tell 'e wot it is, messmate, when you
comes for to see the miners in San Francisco drinkin' _sham_pain like
water, an' payin' a dollar for a glass o' six-water grog, you'll--"

"How much is a dollar?" inquired a soft-looking youth, interrupting him.

Bill said it was "'bout four shillin's," and turned away with a look of
contempt at such a display of ignorance.

"_Four shillin's_!" exclaimed the soft youth, in amazement.

"Clear the anchor, and clew up the main-topsail," shouted the mate.

In another moment the crew were scattered, some aloft to "lay out" on
the topsail yard, some to the clew-lines, and some to clear the anchor,
which latter had not been disturbed since the _Roving Bess_ left the
shores of Old England.

CHAPTER SIX.

SAN FRANCISCO--AN UNEXPECTED DESERTION--CAPTAIN BUNTING TAKES A GLOOMY
VIEW OF THINGS IN GENERAL--NEW FRIENDS AND NEW PLANS--SINGULAR FACTS AND
CURIOUS FANCIES.

The "Golden Gates," as they are called, of San Francisco, are two rocky
headlands, about a mile apart, which form the entrance to one of the
finest harbours, or rather land-locked seas, in the world. This harbour
is upwards of forty miles long, by about twelve miles broad at its
widest point, and receives at its northern end the waters of the noble
Sacramento river, into which all the other rivers in California flow.

Nearly opposite to the mouth of the Sacramento, on the southern shores
of the bay, stands the famous city of San Francisco, close to which the
_Roving Bess_ let go her anchor and clasped the golden strand.

The old adage that, "truth is strange, stranger than fiction," was never
more forcibly verified than in the growth a