Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/126

 98 THE TOURIST'S CALIFORNIA Hunters ! " and arrested their attention by the fur- ther interjections, " Calif ornians, Look Out!" " Ho for Eldorado ! " The little town on the Pacific Coast which in 1847 had been " almost a solitude " was less than two years later crowded with eager faces, its dunes hidden by tents, " muslin sheds," and shacks of clay and wood. The bay whose slumbering waters had but a short time before known only the plash of the Indian's paddle and the occasional sail of an adventurer was now a surge of masts. Ports- mouth Square became the community hearth-place about which life centred, where tales of gold were spun, where sales were consummated, laws were formulated, alcaldes nominated and justice meted out. The City Hall fronted the Square on Kearny Street between Clay and Washington Streets, those vertical paths of the old print. The postoffice was near by in an adobe. When a mail steamer was in, the line to the delivery window ex- tended down hill and across the plaza to the wa- ter's edge. If the window closed before all had reached it, they mobbed the doors until it went up again. In July, 1849, there was one brick build- ing on Montgomery Street. For months which lengthened to years San Fran- cisco was a melee of rushing men and fevered trans- actions, of gambling, distorted values and thronged wharves.