A
few words of explanation sufficed; horses were provided, and we
rode hastily into the city, reaching the office of the Nicaragua
Steamship Company (C. K. Garrison, agent) about dark, just as the
purser had arrived; by a totally different route. It was too late
to send relief that night, but by daylight next morning two
steamers were en route for and reached the place of wreck in time
to relieve the passengers and bring them, and most of the baggage.
I lost my carpet-bag, but saved my trunk. The Lewis went to pieces
the night after we got off, and, had there been an average sea
during the night of our shipwreck, none of us probably would have
escaped. That evening in San Francisco I hunted up Major Turner,
whom I found boarding, in company with General E. A. Hitchcock, at
a Mrs. Ross's, on Clay Street, near Powell. I took quarters with
them, and began to make my studies, with a view to a decision
whether it was best to undertake this new and untried scheme of
banking, or to return to New Orleans and hold on to what I then
had, a good army commission.
At the time of my arrival, San Francisco was an the top wave of
speculation and prosperity. Major Turner had rented at six hundred
dollars a month the office formerly used and then owned by Adams &
Co.
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