The only sidewalks were made of
stepping-stones of empty boxes, and here and there a few planks
with barrel-staves nailed on. All the town lay along Montgomery
Street, from Sacramento to Jackson, and about the plaza. Gambling
was the chief occupation of the people. While they were waiting
for the cessation of the rainy season, and for the beginning of
spring, all sorts of houses were being put up, but of the most
flimsy kind, and all were stores, restaurants, or gambling
-saloons. Any room twenty by sixty feet would rent for a thousand
dollars a month. I had, as my pay, seventy dollars a month, and no
one would even try to hire a servant under three hundred dollars.
Had it not been for the fifteen hundred dollars I had made in the
store at Coloma, I could not have lived through the winter. About
the 1st of April arrived the steamer Oregon; but her captain
(Pearson) knew what was the state of affairs on shore, and ran his
steamer alongside the line-of-battle-ship Ohio at Saucelito, and
obtained the privilege of leaving his crew on board as "prisoners"
until he was ready to return to sea. Then, discharging his
passengers and getting coal out of some of the ships which had
arrived, he retook his crew out of limbo and carried the first
regular mail back to Panama early in April.
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