It is interesting to know the story of some of these pilgrimages. One of the Argonauts has told how he organized, in a little New England town, a company of twenty men. Each man subscribed a certain sum of money in return for a share in any profits, and in this way ten thousand dollars was raised. The men who were to go on the expedition signed a paper agreeing to work at least two years in the gold fields for the company. The band went from the New England town to New York, where they found the harbor filled with ships that were advertised to sail for Nicaragua, Vera Cruz, or Chagres. The leader of the company chose a little brig bound for the latter port, and in this the party, with some twenty-five other passengers, set sail in March. They ran into a heavy storm, but in three weeks reached the port on the Isthmus. There they had to wait some days, as all the river boats had gone up to Gorgona. When the boats were ready, thirty natives poled ten dugouts up the river. When the men landed they were told that there was no ship at Panama; that half the gold-seekers in that town were ill, and that there was no use in pushing on. So the party built tents on the bank of the river, and stayed there until the rainy season drove them to the coast. There they camped again, and waited for a ship to arrive. There was one vessel anchored in the harbor, but the owner was under a bond to keep it there as a coal-ship. The leader of the company, however, persuaded the owner to forfeit this bond, and four hundred waiting passengers paid two hundred dollars apiece to be conveyed to California. The ship was hardly seaworthy, and took seven weeks of sailing and floating to reach the harbor of Acapulco. There the vessel was greeted by a band of twenty Americans, ragged and penniless, who had come on foot from the City of Mexico. They had waited so long for a ship that twenty of the passengers agreed to give them their tickets, and take their places to wait until the next vessel should arrive. It was almost seven months after that New England party had left New York before they arrived at the Golden Gate of San Francisco.