thoroughly ripe on both sides to be duped in the same way.

It is at least a curious thing, to conclude, that the races which
wander widest, Jews and Scotch, should be the most clannish in the
world. But perhaps these two are cause and effect: "For ye were
strangers in the land of Egypt."




PART II--WITH THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL




CHAPTER I.--TO INTRODUCE MR. KELMAR



One thing in this new country very particularly strikes a stranger,
and that is the number of antiquities. Already there have been
many cycles of population succeeding each other, and passing away
and leaving behind them relics. These, standing on into changed
times, strike the imagination as forcibly as any pyramid or feudal
tower. The towns, like the vineyards, are experimentally founded:
they grow great and prosper by passing occasions; and when the lode
comes to an end, and the miners move elsewhere, the town remains
behind them, like Palmyra in the desert. I suppose there are, in
no country in the world, so many deserted towns as here in
California.