Now, without pursuing this question, or glancing at the disappointment of the adventurer—the long days of toil in unhealthy waters—the burning heat of the sun—the chilling nights on a dreary soil—the fevers of the mind as well as of the body—the hope deferred—the horror of being mixed with such society—the desolation of all good that he must see around him, mingling with the memory of the calm delights, the peaceful repose, the joys and purity of home—the glad eyes of sister or mother left behind, but now seemingly looking out sadly upon the scene—the longings for that paradise once more, where in boyhood he put up a prayer at the parental knee:—Without speaking of all this, is the reward, reader, worthy of your sacrifice or of mine, of present comforts and present friends. I think not. The road to fortune, to honorable advancement, is open and plainly marked here, and beaten as it is, with the tread of many feet, it offers far greater chances of success than all the sparkling sands of California, mixed as they are with all that is vile and unworthy. In that immense crowd of adventurers, which is pouring in from every clime, virtue and goodness will be but as pearls dropped into the sea—selfishness unmitigated, vice unabashed, and even red-handed murder, will rear aloft their hideous forms, overawing all decency, and setting at naught “all law, all precedent, all right.” The very absence of all female restraint, their tender charities, and gentle generosities and affections, and noble self sacrifices, which knit the bands of society together and render man human, will there cause to be let loose all the savage passions and instincts of our natures, and a vast army of unprincipled men, fierce in the pursuit of wealth, unrelenting in their towering selfishness as the grave, will make California a second Pandemonium. What is all the gold of the earth, in a land of wrong and violence, and that smells of blood heaven-high, with the whole atmosphere below tainted with its appalling odor?