Frank Marryat

“ There is an absence of variety in the scenery of the Chagres river, as throughout its whole length the banks are lined to the water’s edge with vegetation. But the rich bright green at all times charms the beholder, and the eye does not become wearied with the thick masses of luxuriant foliage, for they are ever blended in{4} grace and harmony, now towering in the air in bold relief against the sky, now drooping in graceful festoons from the bank, kissing their own reflections in the stream beneath.
Every growing thing clings to and embraces its neighbour most lovingly ”

“ Pass on filth, squalor, and poverty, and make way as you should for wealth, for here, with tinkling bells and gay caparisons, comes a train of mules laden with gold—pure gold from Peru; as each mule bears his massive bars uncovered, glittering beneath the cordage which secures them to the saddle, you can touch the metal as they pass. ”

“ It is easy to be grateful when one has health, strength, and freedom, and easy to flatter oneself into the belief that a life so primitive is more natural than one more civilised; but it is but the lazy gratitude of one who has nothing else to live for but himself, and who is freed, not alone from the conventionalities which a more civilised state imposes, but from all claim upon his self-denial. ”

“ Passing Benicia we entered Suisun Bay, on the shores of which a city was attempted—New York by name—but failed. There is something to admire in the audacity of speculators, who finding themselves possessed of a few acres of swamp, wave their wands and order a city to appear. The working human tide of California ebbed and flowed past New York with great regularity, but all commands to arrest it, and direct it from its natural course were futile as regarded that city, which really presented no advantage that I could see. It is now dusk, and we enter the Sacramento river. ”

“ No one knows how many fortunes have been made at Carson’s Hill, nor how many bloody battles have been fought there for the rich earth—but a great many. Two small armies met once on the brow of the hill, and parleyed, weapons in hand and with savage looks, for as much quartz as you might carry away in a fish-cart. ”

“ Rowe had decided upon accompanying me, a circumstance which I shall never regret, for he was in every respect an excellent companion to the day I parted with him. In mountain life, a friend whose tastes are congenial to your own is indeed an acquisition; for each happiness is doubled then, and let misfortune come as it will, its sting is ever allayed by the sympathy of one true heart beside you. ”

“ But I will say this for them, that as a nation they are most charitable, and that they are true friends to one another in adversity; once your friend, the American will share all he has with you, and risk his life in defence of your honour and name—more, he will not even permit merited censure to be passed upon you in his presence, and however suspicious of others worldly contact may have made him, he will repose his confidence in you like a child. And so common are these friendships, that the true generosity which cements them forms a prominent feature of the American character ”

“ Never doubting that it is our first duty as a Christian nation to disseminate those truths that come from an inspired source, why should we, under the influence of a false sympathy, strive to do for the Chinese what so many of our own people yet require. The Chinese have an advantage over many of our lower classes; they are intelligent and reflective, and have Confucian maxims daily brought even in the highways before their notice, that enjoin most of the social duties that render man’s life more in accordance with the Divine wish. ”

“ We may condemn the love of political power, that in the main actuated the Jesuits in their efforts to propagate their faith; but how much has not the love of power, equally reprehensible, been a bar to the cure of our evils at home? Would the young and energetic of our young clergy seek a field abroad in which to work, with little reward and great privation, if the field at home was open to them? ”

“ With our mules in a string we plunged at once into a narrow rocky path in the forest, where palm trees and creepers shut the light out overhead;—splashing through gurgling muddy streams, that concealed loose and treacherous stones—stumbling over fallen trees that lay across our road—burying ourselves to the mules’ girths in filthy swamps, where on either side dead and putrid mules were lying—amidst lightning, thunder, and incessant rain, we went at a foot pace on the road to Panama. ”

“ The quartz was sharp and cut like glass, so we wore deer-skin “trowserloons,” our beards grew, our muscles increased to an alarming extent, our manners were less toned down than was usual, in fact they were swaggering, our appetites were very large, but for all that we were so happy that even the pleasures of the “little valley” fell into insignificance before those of our Tuttletonian life; and this arose in a great measure from the fact that we all entertained a strong belief, that one day or other our labour would be rewarded. ”

“ The Californian will ride a bare-backed horse at speed and bring him on his haunches with a seat undisturbed: but what more particularly arrests the critical eye of an Englishman is their beautiful handling of the horse’s mouth; with a bit, the slightest pressure on which arrests the horse, they ride, in all the excitement of the cattle chase, with a lightness of hand that is truly admirable. ”

“ Is it the exhilaration consequent on reaching a goal where certain reward awaits him? or is it a lurking fear that all may prove illusion?
It is a more intense feeling, perhaps, than that of the man who sees before him the card which carries on its downward side his ruin or his fortune; for the gambler cannot if he would find any stake against which to risk the happiness of wife and children, the affections of a well-loved home, and the chance of misery and speedy death in an unknown land. Such the emigrant knows to have been the lot of thousands who have gone before him ”

“ Where the commerce engaged in fluctuates with every hour, and profit and loss are not matters of calculation, but chance—where all have hung their fortunes on a die, and few are of that class who bring strong principles to bear upon conduct that society does not condemn—the gambling-tables are well supported, and the merchant and his clerk, and perhaps his cook, jostle in the crowd together, and stake their ounces at the same table. ”

“ How many boats have left a ship in the dark night but half full, fearing the impetuous rush which a panic-struck crowd would make at it if again it touched the ship’s sides? Yet the cost of such a buoy is but ten shillings, and that of a life-boat thirty pounds.
It may be said that every passenger can carry his own life-preserver, and that most do so: this is nothing;{400} it gives me no increased confidence to know that Muggins who sleeps next to me has an India-rubber bag that he can blow out each night before turning in. ”

“ Look on the motto, “We strive to save;” now look on the coffin that contains all that is mortal of one who under that banner has found a death as worthy of the laurel as any soldier who at once brings pride and sorrow to the nation in whose cause fighting inch by inch he yields up life. ”

“ As measured by labour and property undoubtedly it is; for it matters not whether in speaking of a gold country, we say that gold is cheap, or labour is dear: as affecting the question the terms are equivalent. Like a stone thrown in the water, the effects of a gold country spread from it in widening circles; the increased value of labour there is diffused to places more remote, and consequently the depreciation of gold is diffused also. ”

“ It is now that the formation of the Californian saddle and the large wooden stirrups protect the rider: a small bar lashed crossways to the peak of the saddle prevents the horse from rolling over, and when he rises his tormentor rises with him unhurt; finding all efforts useless, he bounds into the plain, to return in a few hours sobbing, panting, but mastered. ”