Thus pouring into California in every direction and by every route, this
strange and heterogeneous mass of men, the representatives of every
occupation, honest and dishonest, creditable and disgraceful; of every
people under the sun, scattered through the gulches and ravines in the
mountains, or grouped themselves at certain points in cities, towns and
villages of canons or adobe. Perhaps never in the world's history did
cities spring into existence so instantaneously, and certainly never was
their population so strangely diverse in language, habits and customs.
Of course gamblers of every kind and color; criminals of every shade and
degree of atrocity; knaves of every grade of skill in the arts of fraud
and deceit abounded in every society and place. In these early times
gold was abundant, and any kind of honest labor was most richly and
extravagantly rewarded. The honest, industrious and able men of every
community, therefore, applied themselves strictly to business and would
not be diverted from it by any considerations of duty or of patriotism.
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