The circumstances under which Mr. Taylor entered California, were in striking contrast with those which surrounded him when he made his first attempt to see the world. For, when he started for his European tour, and throughout the whole period of his stay there, he was hindered and annoyed by the lack of money, and by the lack of acquaintances. Then, he was dependent wholly upon his own earnings² and economy for every privilege he enjoyed. He had nothing substantial behind him, and nothing certain before him. But in California he moves among the people with the prestige and capital of a powerful journal behind him, and before him the certainty of ample remuneration for all his trials. He is no longer the unknown, uncared-for stripling, whose adventures are regarded as visionary, and whose company was an[121] intrusion. He was the welcomed guest of naval³ officers, of army officers, and invited to the home of the Military Governor, and to the headquarters of Gen. John C. Fremont.

When he entered San Francisco, that place was only a miners’ camp, composed of tents, barracks, piles of merchandise, and tethered mules⁵. How utterly⁶ incomprehensible it seems now to the visitor to that great metropolis⁷, when he reads that, as late as 1849, there were only huts and tents where now stand the palatial⁸ business blocks, gorgeous hotels, and miles of residences made of brick and stone! It was an interesting time to visit the Pacific shore, and most interestingly did Mr. Taylor describe it in his letters, and in his book entitled “Eldorado.” The great camp of San Francisco was but a few weeks old when he arrived there; but, in its boiling humanity, Mr. Taylor noticed Malays, Chinamen, Mexicans, Germans, Englishmen, Yankees, Indians, Japanese, Chilians, Hawaiians, and Kanakas, rushing, shouting, gesticulating, like madmen. Gold! Gold! Gold! Everything, anything for gold! Though hundreds lay in the swamps of Panama, dead or dying with the

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