. The great American book of biography . loy the wild Indians to hunt it for is one man who has sixty Indians under his employ. His profits area dollar a minute. The wild Indians know nothing of its value, and wonderwhat the pale-faces want to do with it, and they will give an ounce of it for thesame weight of coin silver or a thimbleful of glass beads or a elass of eroe, andwhite men themselves often give an ounce of it, which is worth in our mint ^ more, for a bottle of brandy, a bottle of soda powders, or a plug of tobacco. California in those days was another part of the wo
. The great American book of biography . loy the wild Indians to hunt it for is one man who has sixty Indians under his employ. His profits area dollar a minute. The wild Indians know nothing of its value, and wonderwhat the pale-faces want to do with it, and they will give an ounce of it for thesame weight of coin silver or a thimbleful of glass beads or a elass of eroe, andwhite men themselves often give an ounce of it, which is worth in our mint ^ more, for a bottle of brandy, a bottle of soda powders, or a plug of tobacco. California in those days was another part of the world. The journey to itoverland took weeks, and even months, and was full of perils of starvation in case 528 LELAND STANFORD. of storm and drought, and perils of slaughter if hostile Indians were things went well the life was pleasant enough, and is most picturesque tolook back upon. The buffalo hunts, the meetings with Indians, the kindling ofthe camp-fires at the centre of the great circle of wagons drawn up to form a. GOLD WASHING IN CALIFORNIA. bulwark against attack antl a corral for the catde, the story-telling in the lightxDfthese camp-fires,—all present a picture which men will love to dwell upon so longas the memory of the •Argonauts of horty-nine survives. But there weremany times when the scenes were those of heart-sickening desolation. The CALIFORNIA WAGES. 529 attacks of the Indians were less horrible than attacks of hunger and diseasewhich set in when the emigrant train reached a territory where the grass hadbeen consumed, or lost their cattle in the terrible snow storms of the Sierras. The journey by sea was hardly safer and was far less glorious. Every shipfor California was loaded down with emigrants packed together as closely as somuch baggage. Ships with a capacity for five hundred would crowd in fifteenhundred. The passage money was from $300 to ^600. The companies thatwere able to get their ships backagain simply coined money ; but itwa
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