They had agencies also in every little town in the mines, where they enjoyed the utmost confidence of the community, receiving deposits from miners and others, and selling drafts on the Atlantic States. In fact, besides carrying on the original express business of forwarding goods and parcels, and keeping up an independent post-office of their own, they became also, to all intents and purposes, bankers, and did as large an exchange business as any legitimate banking firm in the country. The want of coin was equally felt in San Francisco, and coins of all countries were taken into circulation to make up the deficiency. As yet a mint had not been granted to California, but there was a Government Assay Office, which issued a large octagonal gold piece of the value of fifty dollars--a roughly executed coin, about twice the bulk of a crown-piece; while the greater part of the five, ten, and twenty dollar pieces were not from the United States Mint, but were coined and issued by private firms in San Francisco. Silver was still more scarce, and many pieces were consequently current at much more than their value. A quarter of a dollar was the lowest appreciable sum represented by coin, and any piece approaching it in size was equally current at the same rate. A franc passed for a quarter of a dollar while a five-franc piece only passed for a dollar, which is about its actual worth. As a natural consequence of francs being thus taken at 25 per cent. more than their real value, large quantities of them were imported and put into circulation. In 1854, however, the bankers refused to receive them, and they gradually disappeared. There was wonderfully little precaution taken in conveying the gold down from the mountains, and yet, although nothing deserving the name of an escort ever accompanied it, I never knew an instance of an attack upon it being attempted. On several occasions I saw the express messenger taking down a quantity of gold from Downieville. He and another man, both well mounted, were driving a mule loaded with leathern sacks, containing probably two or three hundred pounds’ weight of gold. They were well armed, of course; but a couple of robbers, had they felt so inclined, might easily have knocked them both over with their rifles in the solitude of the forest, without much fear of detection. Bad as California was, it appeared a proof that it was not altogether such a country as was generally supposed, when large quantities of gold were thus regularly brought over the lonely mountain-trails, with even less protection than would have been thought necessary in many parts of the Old World.