CALIFORNIA. STRAWS FROM THE GOLD COAST. No.III.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 385, 22 December 1849, Page 3

CALIFORNIA. STRAWS FROM THE GOLD COAST. No. III.

New Cities in the Sacramento Valley—Vernon—-Fre-mO nt a new rival of both— -Suttersville— Webster Suisun — " New York of the Pacific" — Montezuma— ! Benecia — Commercial advantagei — Climate — Climate of Sacramento and San Joaquin vallies— Doctors-»Feverß— Gold. Vernon, July 30, 1819. Dear. Pott— Where is Vernon? you ask; Ah, ■515 1 ur dusty old geographies will avail you nothing on that question. It is not the mount where the ashes of Washington rest — nor any other Vernon than the new town, just chris'ened, at the junction of Feather River with the Sacramento, in Upper California. Four or five rough wood buildings and a few tents mark the site ; the chief business establishments are two or three groceries, where liquor seems to be Ibe main article of traffic. A rival town, named Fremont, with two or three tabernacles for a nucleus, is trying to start iuto exist"nee, on the opposite bank of the Sacramento— but, having the river between it and the minei, its chances of eclipsing Canton or London are not great : indeed the shoal water in the rive r at Vernon, and the course of the stream, leads an enterprising Yankee to suspect that the true place for the city of this region is two or three miles further down the river, on the eastern bank, where the water is deep, and where the Sacramento makes such a bend as to approach nearer than any other point to the rich mines of Feather River and the American Fork. — Accordingly, a new town, at that place, is to enter the lists for public favour. The site is a beautiful one. At what has been so long known as Suttor's Fort, at the junction of the American Fork and the Sacramento, I was astonished, the oiher day, to find a large and flourishing town, named Sacramento, already built and building. In the midst of heavy oak timber, stores and dwellings, of wood and cloth, are shooting up in every direction ; and in walking half a mile up the pretty, closely-built and busy "main street" of the city, you must be careful 0 step high, or Btub your toei every moment againstthc stumps of bushci and SHplinffs, which only a few weeks ago were flourishing here in all their greenness. Forty or fifty vessels, of all sorts, lie at the river's bank— and probably more business ii done at this place than at any other in the countiy, except San Francisco. The ware houses lire full of <roods, which numerous teams arc fast transporting it.ti the mountain". Three inilfs hcluw Sacramento, Suttersville, with a few bushes, is stiupgling for a foothold among cities, but with indifferent success. Ten or fifteen miles further down, you pass the town of Weister, on the eastern hank, where Daniel or Noah (whether the town is named after the statesman or the lexicographer I luiow not) might see a couple of log houses standing as the representatives of Ibe family name. Still sailing down the crooked hut beautiful Sacrnmento, fifteen miles above its mouth you pass the beautiful lite of Suivin, on the right hank— a city at yet without inhabitants. At the junction of the Sacramento with Suiiun bay, on the right hand, is the city of Montezuma (a beautiful iiome for a town). A tingle building marks the spot, though the town is two years old ; and even that tenement, like the "halli" whose name it assumes, has teen, I believe, a long lime deserted. Opposite Monteziimn, at the junction of one of the mouths of the San Joaquin with Suisun bay, is the town site politely called " New York of the Pacific" — a name somewhat after the taste of " Praiie-god Barebones" and other similar appellatives of the days of Cromwell. After some months' puffing, it boasts a tent and an unfinished shanty. On the north side of the straits of Karguines, h Benecia — a town beautifully located, and possesiing greater commercial advantages than any other point on the bay of San Francisco : ships of the largest class lie close in-shore. It is so situated as to command the commerce of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and the immense business of the gold legion. It is the lival of San Fiancisco ; and in natural advantages, is altogether a superior location to that, for a great commercial city. But San Francisco has got the start in point of numbers, capital, andjiotoriety ; and it may he some time before Benecia becomes as largo a place a3 its position would otherwise make it. There arc already 40 or 50 houses up. Two steamers aieat pro ent building, and the shipping which must necessarily come here, owing to the ci owded stale of San Fiancisco, will doubtless cause this place to i^row r,ipidly. The climate is beautiful and salu» brious, like that of Pueblo tie San Jose, Sonoma, and other places, so situated inland, that the chilling breezes of the coast become tempered to a genial softness— while still further inland, as in the vallies of Sacramento and San Joaquin, these breezes become iicated by a continually-unclouded sun shining on a broad region of level country, until they produce a kind of weather almost unbearable, and often send an honett Fahrenheit's Thei momcter, in the shade up to 100° or 120°. With such a temperature, at midday, alternating with cool nights, in a region of almost interminable marshes, formed by the overflow of the rivers, it is not to be wondered at that these two ex« tensive vallies arc an immense hotbed of intermittent and remittent fevers, and other various ills that flesh it heir to. If Doctors can annihilate diiease, there will be little sickness in the country this season —for the pro* festion is swarming. J3ut if all the doctors here are to do a tolerable business, the people are much to be commiserated. Yet, numerous at they are, it it to be feared they will all find ample employment before summer is over. The sickly climate of the great vallies —in which much of the business connected with the mines must be transacted—together with the beastly intemperance that prevails and the exposure of health in various ways, will be sufficient to cut down men even of iron constitutions and the most vigourous health. Hundredi, who have come from abroad for gold, will leave their bone* within the limits of this territory. So much for the new cities of the Sacramento valley. The rivers are down, and gold digging becoming profitable. One man ihowed me #3,000, which he had dug in 29 days, and that without a washing machine. Four individuals, in company, also dug, in that time, #12,009. Adios, Panorama.

No. iv. Compound Cognomens— Embryo City— California Architecture— New Order— How to make a house —Neio use for dry goods — Rome built in a dayCase for Diplomacy— lnmlt to the Stars and Stripes —Hoiu to manage the Indians-— Convention to form Constitution— Working of Mob Law—" Hounds" at San F> ancisco— Transportation to the U. 5.— Justice intimidated — Hanging for stealing — " Expulsion of the Moors"— Mexican Indemnity— Out of tuhoso Pocket— First Steamboat Launched. New York of the Pacific Aug. Bth, 1819. Dearest Poi,.—- The name of thie place will remind you of the good woman, who, bent on giving her boys Scriptural names, called the first four in oider Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and when the fifth you gstcr made his appearance to be named, resolutely dubbed him " Acts of the Apostles," The As tor House here ii less crowded than the granite prison looking structure on veritable Broadway ; and the other building in the city — a small lent — looks less aristocratic than one would think consonant with the euphonious cognomen in which the embryo metropolis rejoices. Apropos, of the new style of architecture to which California has given birth. You see it in perfection at Sacramento City — nearly as perfect at Stockton and San Francisco. The like of it was never seen on ear'h before—and it will take the discovery of a new gold region and a new gold fever to give birth to the like of it again. To describe it artistically is impossible— it has been named in none of the standard books. But the way a house or store is erected, is somewhat on this wise : — You take a common inch board— split it into strips — nail the pieces together and lay them on the ground, as sills. Other strips of boards are set upright, and others nailed on for plates. Two frames of similar slats of the size of the two sides of the roofs are covered with cotton cloth or canvass, and then placed, whole, on the building, made fast by a few nails, and the edifice is covered. In a trice the whole outside of the building is likewise covered with cloth, and a sort of tabernacle, half bouse, half tent, stands ready to receive a family or two of dwellers, or a cargo of goods. The rapidity with which these structures flash into existence, fairly bewilders one. Go out of town in the morning by a familiar street, and when you return at night by the tame thoroughfare the whole aapect of things is so changed, by the new housei built and building, that you have nlmost to enquire your way home. At San Francisco, my own eyes have seen men lay* ing the foundation of a bouse as I was on my way to breakfast, and at tea time I taw the edifice complete and filled wiih an assortment of goods— and, doubtless, bi foie bed time the owner had cleared enough from his sales to pay for his storeroom twice over. This was at Sjii Frfinchco, mind you — not "New York of the Pacific." At Sacramento city something of the Kind may also be witnessed. Tiit'BO unique honsps are used for all sorts of purposes. Some are large wholesaling cstabliahmenls — m< re, retailing shops— more still, grog shops, or gambling shops ; or, in fact, loth— the two vices being to each other hb the Siamese twins. If you set? the American flag fluttering over one of these tabernacles, be sure it is a drinking and a gambling hole— a desecration of the glorious stars and stripes almost equal to tbat of railing them over a foul tent in the mines and persuading the wild Indians it was for their speciil benefit and protection, if they would only bring in, feely, to its occupants, their gold and squaws. Such things have been— ghamoful to tell. lli>\v these frail tenements will stand the frosts and rain* of wintor, time and cold fingers, and damp lodgings, will reveal. August Ist., meetings wore held, in the Several districts, of (he country, to elect members to a convention, to meet in Montcicy, Sept. Ist., to form a State Constitution. Such a constitution can be formed and ratified by the people, and a governor, two senators nnd a icpreeentatives to congress elected, in season to have the constitution ratified, by congress, and the rcaresenfative and senators take their seati before the Ist of January, 1850. The prospect of a government here, even so soon, is cheeiing to every good citizen. Mob law, is at present, the substitute for regular law. In many cases its practical woiking may accord with justice. But, in the nature of things, it cannot do so long. Punishment is unequal. Desperadoes, who know that if they escape immediate arrest, there is no regular authority to follow them up and punißh them twenty years hence, will not be restrained by mob law. A short time since, a band of armed villians — New York loafers, calling themselves " Hounds," (rightly enough,) — paraded San Francisco — robbed, beat, bruised and insul.ed peaceful citizens, aci libitum, and committed crimes that in any good government would have left them dangling between earth and heaven. How were they punished ? The riDgleader, sentenced to be carried by a government vessel, free of expense, back to his fiiends in the United States ! Nothing worse ? No ! Cause why — some other hound or hounds might, on a windy night, touch the northwest corner of tha city with a fire-brand ; and, in a flash, the £>lory ot the great emporium would be like tint of Tyre — an empty somid fjr departed substance. How can even handed justice be distributed when the judge may one minute pass sentence on a culprit, and fhe next, receive a bullet in his body from the culprit's friends or accomplices? At Snnoma, a man, for stealing, received fifty light lashes. At Stockton, a week since, a man stole S'-100 and was immediately tried and bung. The Alcade of ilie place, I am told, did not sanction the execution. In the mines, numerous robberies have taken place and several mock hangings been got up in the way of inquisition or of punishment. Such mockeries and excesses of justice must ultimately le mischievous. Thousands of Mexicans, Chilenos, and Peruvians have been in tho mines thii season ; and their expulsion, by the Americans, has produced some excite* ment— but, as yet, no violence. — Looking upon these foreigners as public robbers, (as they are,) the Americans held meetingi— warned them to be off on short notice, and thousands of them have already gone peacebly back to their homes. The secret of their yielding so quietly is in the fact tbat they have dug immense quantities of gold, which they are afraid of loosing if they get into any open collision with the Americans. It is estimated, by highly competent judges, that these foreigners, chiefly Sonoranians from Mexico, will have carried out of the country, the present season, not less than -8*15,000,000 — a nice little sum for armed Mexicans to come and take out of Uncle Sam's job, to the detriment of sundry of Uncle Sam's own progeny, who are apt lo look on gold with yearnings about as vehement as the deposit! in these mountains aro at present capable of satisfying. A nice little steamer for the rivers, 62 feet long and 15 horse power, is just ready to launch at Benicia, and will be tho first river steamer afloat— and the first put together in thii country. She will mn from Benieia to Springfield, a new city growing up on the Sacramento, three miles below Feather River. Quantum sufficit for this time.— Adios. PANORAMA.