Raw Gold

Mud, and a gray drizzle. Sodden sand dunes, and bleak hills. Board shanties and tents lining narrow lanes choked with plunging horses and patiently wallowing oxen hitched to huge wagons piled high with merchandise, hub-deep in the mire. Pack mules plodding under towering back loads. Drunken teamsters, mud-caked from boot heels to hats, cursing their animals and one another impartially. Unhoused merchandise, tarpaulin-covered or wholly exposed to the weather, occupying every square foot of space not already tented or shantied. And, dominating all, the electric thrill of gold! San Francisco, in the spring of 1849!