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Show 174 PERSONAL ADVENTURES him, but keeps on the even tenor of his way -though even he has occasionally to jump for it-presenting, in his demeanour and costume, a striking contrast to the more bustling activity of the YankeeA, who are elbowing every one, in their anxiety to go a-head. A lot of shopboys, too, Inere lads, as spruce and neatly attired as though they had just stepped out of some fashionable emporium, mingle with the rest, and, as they enter the to,vn, strike up the popular parody- "Oh, California! That's the land for me! I'm bound for the Sacramento, with The wash-bowl on my knee." And presently, their brother-adventurers, ex· cited by hopes of the wildest kind, join voci· f.e rously in chorus, in the exuberance of their JOy. A group of Englishmen, muscular in form, and honest in feature, are chaffering with the keen-witted Yankee porters for the carriage of their luggage. There is an air of dogged resolution about then1, that plainly indicates they will not submit to what they evidently IN CALIFORNIA. 175 consider an imposition. Such a sum for so slender a service ! Well, then, they can carry their baggage themselves ; so they 'viii : and, quickly shouldering it, some depart in the track of the rest, whilst two or three remain behind, to watch what is left, until their friends return. They are manifestly 'vell known to one another, and seem to be almost intimate: the voyage has made them friends. Here cotne a ·number of Chilians and Peruvians, and a goodly number of natives from the Sandwich Islands. A couple of Irishtnen, too! I know them by their vivacity, and by the odd trick they have of getting into every body's way; to say nothing of their broad, merry faces. Their property is in common, it seems ; for they have only one small pack between them . Here come ten or a dozen plainly but comfortably dressed n1echanics; hard-wor·king Jooking men they seem, and just the sort of persons to make their \vay in a country where the artisan occupies his proper position, and where honest toil-and dishonest, too, some- |