Handbook to the new Gold-fields

to the new Gold-fields, by R. M.
Ballantyne

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Title: Handbook to the new Gold-fields
Author: R. M. Ballantyne
Release Date: November 7, 2007 [EBook #23389]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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HANDBOOK TO THE NEW GOLD-FIELDS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Handbook to the New Gold-Fields, by R.M. Ballantyne.

INTRODUCTION.

HANDBOOK TO THE NEW EL-DORADO.
The problem of colonisation in the north-western portion of British
America is fast working itself out. The same destiny which pushed
forward Anglo-Saxon energy and intelligence into the rich plains of
Mexico, and which has peopled Australia, is now turning the current of
emigration to another of the "waste-places of the earth." The discovery
of extensive goldfields in the extreme west of the territories now
occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company, is a great fact. It no longer
comes to us as the report of interested adventurers, or the exaggeration
of a few sanguine diggers, but with well-authenticated results--large
quantities of gold received at San Francisco, and a consequent rush of
all nations from the gold regions of California, as well as from the
United States and Canada. The thirst for Gold is, as it always has been,
the most attractive, the strongest, the most unappeasable of
appetites--the impulse that builds up, or pulls down empires, and floods
the wilderness with a sudden population. In those wild regions of the
Far West men are pouring in one vast, gold-searching tide of thousands
and tens of thousands, into the comparatively unknown territory
beyond the Rocky Mountains, for which our Legislature has just
manufactured a government. How strange is the comparison instituted
by the Times between the rush to Fraser River and the mediaeval
crusades, which carried so large a portion of the population of Europe
to die on the burning plains of Palestine! At Clermont Ferrand, Peter
the Hermit has concluded his discourse; cries are heard in every quarter,
"It is the will of God! It is the will of God!"; Every one assumes the
cross, and the crowd disperses to prepare for conquering under the
walls of the earthly, a sure passage to the heavenly, Jerusalem. What
elevation of motive, what faith, what enthusiasm! Compare with this
the picture presented by San Francisco Harbour. A steamer calculated
to carry 600 persons, is laden with 1600. There is hardly standing room
on the deck. It is almost impossible to clear a passage from one part of
the vessel to the other. The passengers are not knights and barons, but
tradesmen, "jobbers," tenants, and workmen of all the known varieties.
Their object in of the earth, earthy--wealth in its rawest and rudest
form-- gold, the one thing for which they bear to live, or dare to die.
Although in the comparison the crusades may have the superiority in

many points, yet so little have ideal, romantic, and sentimental
considerations to do with the current of human affairs, that while the
crusades remain a monument of abortive and objectless folly, fatal to
those who embarked in them, and leaving as their chief result a tinge of
Asiatic ferocity on European barbarism, the exodus of San Francisco,
notwithstanding the material end it has in view, is sure to work out the
progress of happiness and civilisation, and add another to the many
conquests over nature, which the present age has witnessed.
In a year more than ordinarily productive of remarkable events, one of
the most noteworthy, and that which is likely to leave a lasting
impression on the world, is this discovery of gold on the coasts of the
Pacific. The importance of the new region as a centre for new
ramifications of English relations with the rest of the world cannot well
be exaggerated either in a political or a commercial point of view. It
will be the first really important point we shall have ever commanded
on that side of the Pacific Ocean, and it cannot but be of inestimable
value in developing our relations with America, China, Japan, and
Eastern Russia.
This new discovery must also tend to make the western shore of the
American continent increasingly attractive, from Fraser's River down to
Peru the rivers all bear down treasures of a wealth perfectly inestimable.
Emigration must necessarily continue to flow and increase. Gold
digging is soon learned, and there will be an immense demand for
every kind of labour at almost fabulous prices.
It is further valuable as