It is not surprising that some of the minority of honest and respectable men, who found themselves mingled with the mob of ruffians and outlaws assembled in California, thought the prospect of wealth dearly purchased by a prolonged residence in vile society and a most trying climate, and by labour and exposure destructive to health. Mr Johnson assures us that, among the miners who had been long at the diggings, he saw very few who were not suffering from disease--emaciated by fever till they were mere walking shadows, or tormented by frequently recurring attacks of scurvy and rheumatism. If there was a constant stream of adventurers proceeding to the diggings, there was also a pretty steady flow of weary and sickly men returning thence. It would seem, from Mr Johnson's account, that no previous habit of hard labour qualifies the human frame to follow, without injury, the trying trade of a gold-grubber. "We met a party of six sailors, of the Pacific whalers, who were returning to go before the mast again, swearing, sailor-fashion, that they would rather go a whaling at half wages than dig gold any more." Mr Johnson was somewhat of the same way of thinking. He sums up a general review of California in the following words:-- "So large an emigration of the American people, as have gone to that territory, must make something of the country. They will make it one of the states of this Union, at all events, and speedily, too: and although the country is only adapted by nature for mining and grazing, yet a constant trade must result from the former, and more or less agriculture be added to the latter, from the necessity of the case. A few have made, and will hereafter make fortunes there, and very many of those who remain long enough will accumulate something; but the great mass, all of whom expected to acquire large amounts of gold in a short time, must be comparatively disappointed. The writer visited California to dig gold, but chose to abandon that purpose rather than expose his life and health in the mines; and as numbers were already seeking employment in San Francisco without success, and he had neither the means nor the inclination to speculate, he concluded to return to his family and home industry."