Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/204



.192 THE  VOYAGE  TO  CALIFORNIA.

on foot  with  two  or  three  companions  from  Agua Dulce, on  the  coast  of  Lower  Cahfornia,  to  San  Fran- cisco, about twelve  hundred  miles. They had  been obliged to  land  by  reason  of  the  slowness  of  their  ship, scarcity of  water,  and  stubbornness  of  their  captain. They arrived  at  San  Francisco  before  the  ship. The latter  took  166  days  for  the  trip.

But even  crazy  sailing  vessels  were  better  than dug-out canoes,  in  which  some  started  on  the  long voyage from  Panamd,  to  San  Francisco. Bayard Taylor states  that  in  the  early  part  of  1849,  when three thousand  persons  were  waiting  on  the  Isthmus for conveyance  to  the  new  El  Dorado,  several  small parties started  in  log  canoes  of  the  natives,  thinking to reach  San  Francisco  in  them. After a  voyage  of forty  days,  during  which  they  went  no  farther  than the island  of  Quibo,  at  the  mouth  of  the  gulf,  nearly all of  them  returned. Of the  rest,  nothing  was  ever heard. On other  authority,  we  are  informed  that twenty-three men  left  Panamd,  on  the  29th  of  May, 1849, in  a  dug-out  canoe,  for  San  Francisco. None of these  madmen  ever  proceeded  far  on  the  road; neither did  many  of  them  ever  return.

Returning to  our  voyage  by  steamer. **Ah ! " ex- clahiis  the  enthusiastic  lover  of  California,  immediately his  foot  touches  the  well-scrubbed  deck  of  the  Pacific Mail  steamer  in  Panama  bay,  "such  is  California, such the  superiority  of  the  new  over  the  old. As the Atlantic st'jamer  is  to  the  Pacific  steamer,  as  Aspin- wall is  to  Panamd,  so  is  your  cold,  dull,  eastern  coast to our  warm,  brigbfc,  western  coast."

In due  time  a  steam '  tender  conveyed  travellers from the  company's  wharf  to  the  steamer  at  anchor some three  miles  away. On account  of  the  tide, which rises  and  falls  about  senv^enteen  feet  at  neap, and twenty-two  feet  at  spring  tides,  the  tender  can float at  the  wharf  only  twice  in  twenty-four  hours. Low water  spring  tides  lay  bare  the  beach  for  a  mile