Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/97

 so freely that it seemed as if it would never be wanting again. Between the embarcadero and the fort, "boatmen were shouting and swearing; waggoners were whistling and hallooing, and cracking their whips at their straining horses, as they toiled along with heavily laden wagons to the different stores within the building; groups of horsemen were riding to and fro, and crowds of people were moving about on foot. It was evident the gold mania increased in force as the eagerly longed-for El Dorado was approached. Every store and shed was being crammed with bales of goods, barrels of flour, and a thousand other things for which a demand had- suddenly sprung up. The captain's own house was like a hotel crowded with more visitors than it could accommodate."

The incomers could not obtain accommodations within the fort, and were obliged to content themselves with camping outside. "It was not easy to pick our way through the crowds of strange people who were moving backwards and forwards in every direction," says one who was present. "Carts were passing to and fro; groups of Indians squatting on their haunches were chattering together, and displaying to one another the flaring red and yellow handkerchiefs, the scarlet blankets, and muskets of the most worthless Brummagem make, for which they had been exchanging their bits of gold. Inside the stores the bustle and noise were even greater. Some half a dozen sharp-visaged Yankees, in straw hats and loose frocks, were driving hard bargins for dollars with the crowd of customers who were continually pouring in to barter a portion of their stock of gold for coffee and tobacco, breadstuff, brandy, and bowie-knives. Of spades and mattocks there were none to be had. In one corner, at a railed-off desk, a quick-eyed old man was busily engaged with weights and scales, setting his own value on the lumps of golden ore or the bags of dust which were being handed over to him, and in exchange for which he told out the estimated quantity