Page:The Ifs of History (1907).pdf/164



OWARD the end of the year 1850, Captain Jennings, of the American bark Auckland, trading in Asiatic waters, picked up the shipwrecked crew of a Japanese fishing vessel, somewhere off the coast of Japan. The captain was then bound for the new port of San Francisco, which the California gold-diggings had already made an important city. He continued on his course, and in due time—that is to say, very early in the year 1851—landed at San Francisco with his party of refugees.

Here the bright little Orientals were