From the seaports the new arrivals hurried either up the Sacramento and the Feather Rivers to the northern gold fields, or up the San Joaquin to the southern country. Usually they were guided by the latest story of a rich find, and went where the chances seemed best. Several men would join forces and pitch their tents together, naming their camp Rat-trap Slide, Rough and Ready Camp, Slap-jack Bar, Mad Mule Gulch, Git-up-and-Git, You Bet, or any other name that struck their fancy. There were no laws to govern these little settlements, and the men adopted a rough system of justice that suited themselves. But as the numbers increased it was evident that California must have a better form of government, and steps were taken to have that rich stretch of land along the Pacific admitted as a state to the United States. In three years California had grown from the home of about two thousand people to the home of eighty thousand. The finding of gold had changed that almost unknown wilderness into a thriving land in the twinkling of an eye. Railroads were built to reach it, and more and more men poured west. Some men made great fortunes, but more in a few months abandoned their claims and drifted to the cities, or made their way slowly back to the eastern farms and villages from which they had set out. The Forty-niners, as the gold-seekers were called, found plenty of adventure in California, even if they did not all find a short-cut to wealth. IX HOW THE UNITED STATES MADE FRIENDS WITH JAPAN One of the beautiful names that the Japanese have given to their country is "Land of Great Peace," and at no time was this name more appropriate than in the middle of the nineteenth century. Two hundred years before the last of the civil wars of Japan had come to an end, and the people, weary of years of bloodshed, had turned delightedly to peaceful ways. The rice-fields were replanted, artisans returned to their crafts, shops opened again, and poets and painters followed the call of their arts. The samurai, or warriors, sheathed their swords, though they still regarded them as their very souls. They hung their armor in their ancestral halls, and spent their time in sport or idleness. The daimios, or nobles of Japan, lived either in the city of Yedo or at their country houses, taking their ease, and gradually forgetting the arts of war on which their power had been founded. All the people were quite contented, and had no desire to trade with the rest of the world. As a matter of fact they knew almost nothing about other countries, except through English or Russian sailors who occasionally landed on their coasts. Japan was satisfied to be a hermit nation.