Fruits and vegetables are unattainable. The mission grapes,
olives, and oranges have died out by reason of fourteen years'
neglect. The mechanic arts are absent. What shall the harvest of
this idle land be?
Valois knows the interior Indians will never bear the strain of
development. Lazy and ambitionless, they are incapable of uniting
their tribal forces. Alas for them! They merely cumber the ground.
At the end of January, 1848, a wild commotion agitates the hamlet
of San Francisco. The cry is "Gold! Gold everywhere!" The tidings
are at first whispered, then the tale swells to a loud clamor.
In the stampede for the interior, Maxime Valois is borne away. He
seeks the Sacramento, the Feather, the Yuba, and the American. He
too must have gold.
A general hegira occurs. Incoming ships, little settlements, and
the ranches are all deserted, for a wondrous golden harvest is
being gleaned. The tidings go forth over the whole earth. Sail and
steam, trains of creaking wagons, troops of hardy horsemen, are all
bent Westward Ho! Desertion takes the troops and sailors from camp
and fleet pell-mell to the Sacramento valley. A shabby excrescence
of tent and hut swells Yerba Buena to a town. In a few months
it leaps into a city's rank.
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