“I've Found the Gold!”(I)

 一百五十多年前,当“我捡到金子了!”这句话传遍美国大陆时，狂热的淘金者蜂拥而至，从此，美国历史掀开了崭新的篇章。本文披露了一些鲜为人知的史料，值得一读。

       While inspecting the watercourse of a sawmill1 in Northern California, carpenter James Marshall caught sight of a glittering object. Something metallic was shining a few inches under the rippling surface2 of the American River’s South Fork. Marshall soon realized he’d stumbled3 on something very rare. “By God,” he said of his discovery that January day in 1848, “I believe I have found a gold mine!”

       Marshall went to find his employer, a Swiss adventurer named John Sutter, whose 48,000-acre land grant encompassed4 some of the best farmland in California. Marshall locked the door, opened a scrap of cotton cloth and placed the gold on the table.

       The men tried to keep the discovery secret, Sutter staying at his fort while Marshall raced back to the sawmill. After a restless night, Sutter met him upriver, where Sutter used his pocketknife to pry loose a nugget5 that weighed an ounce and a half. Before sundown, the two had filled their pockets.

       Gold on the Brain. At the port of Yerba Buena (soon renamed San Francisco), the news caused a sensation. Sam Brannan, an enterprising merchant who had a general store at Sutter’s fort, walked along Montgomery Street holding up vials6 of gold dust, shouting, “Gold! Gold! From the American River!” Doctors, judges, clerks and soldiers raced for the gold fields. Stores shut, newspapers closed and ships were deserted by their crews.

      The gold seekers poured onto Sutter’s land. When Brannan’s general store ran out of supplies, they began stealing tools, food, livestock and gold itself. Sutter, once hopeful he would become the richest man in California, now struggled to maintain his land.

       Prospectors quickly discovered that gold deposits stretched for 120 miles—from the Feather River in the north almost to the Tuolumne River in the south, and 60 miles from west to east. The first miners didn’t even bother to stake claims7 — they just scooped up8 the surface gold, then move on. Stories abounded. On the Yuba River, one man picked up 30 pounds of gold from a four-foot-square area. Another found $2000 worth of gold under his doorstep.

       When President James K. Polk confirmed the discovery in December 1848, the gold rush began in earnest. Tens of thousands of Americans and foreigners prepared to head to California. “The gold rush energized the nation,” wrote J.S. Holliday, author of The World Rushed In. “It seemed to confirm the American dream of limitless opportunity.”

       Risky Business. Between April and December 1849, 31,000 people arrived by ship in San Francisco. But most forty-niners9 chose the overland route—a four to six month journey across 2000 miles of largely unmapped wilderness. One of them was Englishman James Hutchings, 24, a journalist working in New Orleans. As he journeyed westward, he kept a detailed diary:

       May 16, 1849: “Ho for California!10 was the general cry, and it suited my taste to go.

       Hutchings went by steamboat to St. Joseph, Mo., where he joined a company of men who pooled their money11 to purchase wagons, oxen, tools, and food for the trek12 to California. Crossing the prairie, Hutchings saw long trains of wagons, their white canvas covers stretching away for miles. Soon he began passing the graves of those who had died along the way, most of them from cholera13.

       June 23: Without water for 25 miles. I became so thirsty as to be sick and giddy14. I came to a deep wheel rut15 with water no warmer than new milk, drank deeply, rested and drank again.

       Flat prairie gave way to the rugged landscape16 of the West, and Hutchings’s company traveled by starlight to avoid the daytime heat. At first the Indians they encountered were not hostile. But as the newcomers began killing off game17 and intruding in ever-GREater numbers, the Indians started stealing the immigrants’ livestock. Bloody encounters increased.

       September 23: About midnight I heard a whickerin18 among the horses, and saw the head of an Indian. With my revolver cocked, I started after him to get a favorable shot19. But I couldn’t do it. We went looking for the animals, and to our GREat dismay six of them were missing.

       October 3: A team just ahead of us picked up a white man, dead, with five arrows in his side.

       The forbidding peaks of the Sierras now rose up before the exhausted men. In mid-October, weak and hungry, Hutchings descended to a chaotic sprawl of tents20 and log cabins that was his dream: the mining camp of Hangtown. It was so named because of the swift way its inhabitants dealt with troublemakers.

       Notes:

       1.勘测锯木厂的水路 2.在涟漪波动的水面下 3.偶然遇到 4.包含，环绕 5.撬起一天然金块 6.小瓶 7.立界标以表明（土地的）所有权 8.（口）捡起 9.（美口）1849年涌往加州淘金的人 10.往加州去嗬！11.把钱集中在一起12.旅行，长途跋涉 13.霍乱14.头晕的 15.很深的车辙16.多丘陵地带 17.杀光猎物 18.马嘶声19.我打开枪机，跟在他的后面，以便能准确地射击 20.一片杂乱的帐篷