Sandwich Islands, and Chinese from Canton and Hong Kong.  All seemed, in hurrying to and fro, to be busily occupied and in a state of pleasurable excitement.  Everything needed for their wants; food, clothing, and lodging-quarters, and everything required for transportation and mining, were in urgent demand and obtained extravagant prices.  Yet no one seemed to complain of the charges made.  There was an apparent disdain of all attempts to cheapen articles and reduce prices.  News from the East was eagerly sought from all new comers.  Newspapers from New York were sold at a dollar apiece.  I had a bundle of them, and seeing the price paid for such papers, I gave them to a fellow-passenger, telling him he might have half he could get for them.  There were sixty-four numbers, if I recollect aright, and the third day after our arrival, to my astonishment he handed me thirty-two dollars, stating that he had sold them all at a dollar apiece.  Nearly everything else brought a similarly extravagant price.  And this reminds me of an experience of my own with some chamois skins.  Before I left New York, I purchased a lot of stationery and the usual accompaniments of a writing-table, as I intended to practise my profession in California.  The stationer, learning from some remark made by my brother Cyrus, who was with me at the time, that I intended to go to California, said that I ought to buy some chamois skins in which to wrap the stationery, as they would be needed there to make bags for carrying gold-dust.  Upon this suggestion, I bought a dozen skins for ten dollars.  On unpacking my trunk, in Marysville, these chamois skins were of course exposed, and a gentleman calling at the tent, which I then occupied, asked me what I would take for them.  I answered by inquiring what he would give for them.  He replied at once, an ounce apiece.  My astonishment nearly choked me, for an ounce was taken for sixteen dollars; at the mint, it often yielded eighteen or nineteen dollars in coin.  I, of course, let the skins go, and blessed the hunter who brought the chamois down.  The purchaser made bags of the skins, and the profit to him from their sale amounted to two ounces on each skin.  From this transaction, the story arose that I had sold porte-monnaies in Marysville before practising law, which is reported in the interesting book of Messrs. Barry and Patten, entitled “Men and Memories of San Francisco in the Spring of 1850.”  The story has no other foundation.

But I am digressing from the narrative of my first experience in San Francisco.  After taking my breakfast, as already stated, the first thing I noticed was a small building in the Plaza, near which a crowd was gathered.  Upon inquiry, I was told it was the court-house.  I at once started for the building, and on entering it, found that Judge Almond, of the San Francisco District, was holding what was known as the Court of First Instance, and that a case was on trial.  To my astonishment I saw two of my