To add to the commotion, we here met the main
body of returning CaHfornians, on their way from
Panamd to take the steamer which we had left. Some
of them were neatly clad, orderly, and quiet ; others,
in their shaggy hair and long untrimmed beard,
guarding with religious care their torn and earth-
stained garments, as sacred relics of their pilgrimage,
were laden with gold-dust, and wore in their bronzed
visao-es the smirk of success ; but by far the greater
number were disappointed-looking men, poorly dressed,
some suffering from rheun:atism, crippled limbs, and
broken constitutions; some with their formerly stal-
wart frames shrunken and wasted by fever, and many
disheartened, bankrupt wretches, who had been
stripped of their all, and were now returning to their
homes, scattering curses on California as they went
alono". It is a siixnificant fact that the steamer steer-
age was better filled on the return trip than on the
voyage out ; and there was more money in the pock-
ets and in the gold-dust belts of the steerage passen-
gers than in those of the cabin passengers. The rea-
sons were these: Returning Californians comprised
four several classes. First, those who could get home
no other way, who could barely scrape enough together
to buy a steerage ticket. Secondly, those who had
money, but who had toiled hard for it, were accus-
tomed to roughing it, and preferred economizing here
that they might have the more hereafter; this was a
large class. Thirdly, inefficient and impecunious sons
or relatives of gentlemen, who were heljDed to Cali-
fornia by their friends in the hope that they would
there develop into something, and were now, after
having made a miserable failure of it, being helped
back to their homes in order to save them from total
destruction. These could by no means make up their
minds to descend into the depths so long as they had
friends to foot their bills. And fourthly, men of
means, whose money was chiefly in bills of exchange.
Many miners went home in the steerage armed to the
