Others
toiled their way through the hills and the Livermore Valley. The ferry
across Carquinez Straits at Benicia, was thronged to the danger
of sinking.
Those who stayed at home awaited eagerly the irregular mails which
straggled in from unsettled, unorganized, often inaccessible regions
where men cut and slashed the bowels of the earth for precious metal, or
waded knee-deep in icy torrents, washing their sands in shallow
containers for golden residue. No letter had come from Benito to Inez or
Adrian. But Robert Windham wrote from Monterey as follows:
"My Children: Monterey is mad with the gold-lust, and our citizens are
departing with a haste that threatens depopulation. Until recently we
had small belief in the tales of sudden fortune started by the finds at
Marshall's mill. Alcalde Colton dispatched a messenger to the American
River on the 6th of June, and, though he has not returned, others have
brought the news he was sent to gain. On the 12th a man came into town
with a nugget weighing an ounce and all Monterey Buzzed with excitement.
Everyone wanted to test it with acids and microscopes. An old woman
brought her ring and when placed side by side, the metal seemed
identical; it was also compared with the gold knob of a cane.
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