yet it was a new country and no bridges. The streams might get up so as
to be impassable, and the houses were consigned to me, and no one but
myself to receive them. I thought I had better get back to San Francisco
at once. What I was making in the mines was mere nothing to what I had
at stake in the houses. Although, to tell the truth, I never left a
place with more regret, as hard as the fare was. We were interested
every day in the work for gold, and did not know when we might make a
rich strike. My last day there it rained. Notwithstanding, a companion
and myself went out to dig for a couple of hours. When we returned, we
had $25 worth. That was the last of my mining. I started the next
morning for Sacramento afoot. I sold my pistol and blankets for an ounce
each, $16 apiece. On my route I met a man bound for the same place. We
joined teams and became very intimate.

The only incident of importance was when we got within five miles of
Sacramento. We stopped at a log cabin and ordered dinner. A short time
after my companion came to me in some excitement and said he had looked
through the window and that they were cooking potatoes for dinner. I
could not believe the good news, and so went and looked for myself and
found it was true. I had not tasted one in two months. We took the
steamer _Senator_ that evening for San Francisco. It had been a Long
Island steamboat and had arrived since my departure for the mines. It
was the first steamer that had ever sailed the interior waters of
California, and had been put on to run from San Francisco to Sacramento.
I think it belonged to Grenell, Minton & Co., a prominent shipping firm
of New York city. Charley Minton had charge of it. Of course its profits
were great. But I could not sleep in my state-room berth; I had been so
long used to a hard bed I was restless, but we arrived safe the next
morning at San Francisco. The bulk of my book will be events that
occurred during my residence in that city. I scarcely know how to begin