In the spring of 1861 my brother Orion, then Secretary of the Territory of Nevada, telegraphed that he had secured appointments for Sam and me, and that we had better not delay our going, as the appointments were valuable. We were living in San Francisco at the time, and were boarding with a family who kept a large boarding-house for miners and clerks and others, and the family and boarders were much pestered by Sam's musical performances. He attempted to play upon every instrument that he could lay hands upon; and when he tired of any one he would take up some other. He would practice for hours at a time; and then he would play in chorus with any one who would indulge him. He then played the cornet in company with a violoncello, a tin trumpet, a jew's-harp, and an old broken fiddle that had but two strings.
We were notified by telegram that our appointments had been confirmed, and we were to start at once; so we raised our fare by means of a loan, and set out in the steerage of the steamship Pacific for Carson City. The Pacific was crowded to the guards with a miscellaneous company of miners, veterans, emigrants, gamblers, and adventurers of every description; and the music and the waggery on board were such as are only to be found on a ship of discovery that carries the human kaleidoscope.
Our journey up the Sacramento River was interesting, chiefly because of the queer people who came on board at every landing. President and monarch and pauper, churchman and infidel, saint and sinner, jolly, sullen, talkative, silent,—all sorts and conditions of men,—were there, and they all had amusing things to say or do. It was this motley company, and the strange tales they told, that gave the voyage its chief charm.
At Marysville, Sam and I left the steamer to proceed by railroad to Nevada, and then by stage to Carson City. The stage was a typical specimen of the Western road-coach; it was made of roughly-hewn lumber, with iron tires on the wheels, and was suspended upon leather straps. It was drawn by four mules, and the coachman was a stalwart fellow who might have been taken for a white-armed mastiff; he drove with a naval freedom that looked as if it belonged to a man who had been accustomed to rule a deck.
We were introduced to many new experiences on the way—long stretches of desert, abrupt mountains, streams in which we had to ford our horses, and halts at shanties where the proprietors sold coffee and fried bacon to travelers at a high figure. The air was dry and made the skin burn, and the sun in the noon was a great hostile globe that made the mules stagger and the driver take off his hat and wipe his forehead with a bandanna.
When we at length reached Carson City, Orion received us with open arms. He had arranged for our quarters, and had a little suite of rooms ready for us in a house that was quite comfortably furnished—comfortable, that is to say, for Nevada. The Legislature was in session, and the city was full of men who came there to be on hand where business was to be done. There was a perpetual ferment of conversation and of deal-making.