an; and turned away with
a reckless laugh.

Filled with the wine of this new excitement we finally succeeded in
getting ashore in one of the ship's boats.

We landed on a flat beach of deep black sand. It was strewn from one end
to the other by the most extraordinary wreckage. There were levers,
cogwheels, cranks, fans, twisted bar, and angle iron, in all stages of
rust and disintegration. Some of these machines were half buried in the
sand; others were tidily laid up on stones as though just landed. They
were of copper, iron, zinc, brass, tin, wood. We recognized the genus at
a glance. They were, one and all, patent labour-saving gold washing
machines, of which we had seen so many samples aboard ship. At this
sight vanished the last remains of the envy I had ever felt for the
owners of similar contraptions.

We looked about for some sort of conveyance into which to dump our
belongings. Apparently none existed. Therefore we piled most of our
effects neatly above high tide, shouldered our bundles, and started off
up the single street.

On either side this thoroughfare stood hundreds of open sheds and
buildings in the course of construction. Goods of all sorts, and in
great quantity, lay beneath them, wholly or partially exposed to the
dust and weather. Many unopened bales had been left in the open air. One
low brick building of a single story seemed to be the only substantial
structure in sight. We saw quantities of calicos, silks, rich furniture,
stacks of the pieces of knock-down houses, tierces of tobacco, piles of
all sorts of fancy clothing. The most unexpected and incongruous items
of luxury seemed to have been dumped down here from the corners of the
earth, by the four hundred ships swinging idly at anchor in the bay.

The street was, I think, the worst I have ever seen anywhere. It was a
morass of mud, sticky greasy mud, of some consistency, but full of
water-holes and rivulets. It looked ten feet deep; and I should
certainly have ventured out on it with misgivings. And yet,
incongruously enough, the surface ridges of it had dried, and were
lifting into the air in the form of dust! This was of course my first
experience with that common California phenomenon, and I was greatly
astonished.

An attempt had been made to supply footing for pedestrians. Bags of sand
had been thrown down, some rocks, a very few boxes and boards. Then our
feet struck something soft and yielding, and we found we were walking
over