It remains an inexplicable fact, that, as early as 1841, gold was found in the southern part of the State. In 1843, seventy-five to one hundred ounces of dust were obtained from the Indians, and sent to Boston via the Sandwich Island trading ships. Keen old Sir Francis Drake's reports to good Queen Bess flatly spoke of these yellow treasures. They, too, were ignored. English apathy! Pouring in from the whole world, bursting in as a flood of noisy adventurers on the stillness of the lazy land of the Dons, came the gold hunters of California. Already, in San Francisco, drinking booth, gambling shop, and haunts of every villany spring up--the toadstools of a night. Women throng in to add the incantations of the daughters of Sin to this mad hurly-burly. Handsome Mexicans, lithe Chilenas, escaped female convicts, and women of Australia were reinforced by the adventuresses of New Orleans, Paris, New York, and Liverpool--a motley crowd of Paphian dames. Maxime Valois, reaching Suiter's Fort by a launch, falls in with a lank Missouri lad. His sole property in the world is a rifle and his Pike county name of Joe Woods. A late arrival with a party of Mexican war strays, his age and good humor cause the Creole to take him as valuable, simply because one and one make two. He is a good-humored raw lad. Together in the broiling sun, half buried under bank or in the river-beds, they go through the rough evolution of the placer miner's art. The two thousand scattered foreigners of the State are ten thousand before the year is out. Through the canyons, troops of gold seekers now wander. Sacramento's lovely crystal waters, where the silvery salmon leap, are tinged with typical yellow colors, deepening every month. Tents give way to cabins; pack trains of mules and horses wind slowly over the ridges. Little towns dot the five or six river regions where the miners toil, and only the defeated are idle. From San Diego to Sonoma the temporary government is paralyzed. It loses all control except the fulmination of useless orders. Local organization occurs by the pressure of numbers. Quaint names and queer local institutions are born of necessity. At San Francisco the tower of Babel is duplicated. Polyglot crowds arrive in the craziest craft. Supplies of every character pour in. Shops and smiths, workmen of all trades, appear. Already an old steamboat wheezes on the Sacramento River. Bay Steamers soon vex the untroubled waters of the harbor. They appear as if by magic. A fever by day, a revel by night, San Francisco is a caravansera of all nations. The Argonauts bring with them their pistols and Bibles, their whiskey and women, their morals and murderers. Crime and intrigues quickly crop out. The ready knife, and the compact code of Colonel Colt in six loaded chapters, are applied to the settlement of all quarrels.