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His company owned a line of ocean steamers both on the Pacific side and on the Atlantic side. Passengers en route from New York to the gold-fields were landed by these latter steamers at Greytown on the west coast of Nicaragua, and sent by boats of light draught up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua. There they were met by larger lake steamers and conveyed across the lake to Virgin Bay.
Ned would probably have agreed to this cheerfully, had not a thirst for adventure been created by the stirring accounts which had begun to arrive at this time from the recently-discovered gold-fields of California.
Letters were brought from Salt Lake first at a cost of two dollars and a half each, and later in the season at one dollar each. All money at infinite risk was sent to the nearest express office at Salt Lake City by private hands." Practically every man in the new gold-fields was aware of the existence of a secret band of well-organized ruffians and robbers.
It is hard for us to realize, now, that only sixty years ago the territory lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific coast was practically unknown. Try to imagine the feelings of emigrants, bound for the gold-fields of California, who have pushed into the Great Basin without knowing where to look for grass or water.
The rush to Cape Nome has attracted attention to only a comparatively insignificant portion of Alaska, and emphasized but one of the treasures in its vast, unexplored storehouse. In the north and east, and over by the Canadian border-line, is the world-famous Klondike region. Fifteen hundred miles distant to the west, close to Siberia, are the Nome gold-fields.
It became absorbed in the expansion of its commerce, the development of its manufactures, and the growth of its emigration, all quickened by the riches of its marvelous gold-fields; until unexpectedly and suddenly it found itself plunged once again into political controversies more distracting and more ominous than the worst it had yet experienced.
To have you and Guy in the tent would make our party perfect, but it would try your constitutions I fear, and do you no good mentally, for the society by which we are surrounded is anything but select. "But enough of the gold-fields. I have a lot of questions to ask and messages to send to my old friends and mates at Deal."
Some of these descendants, becoming men of energy, with roving dispositions like their sires, travelled into the far north, and west, and helped to draw forth the copper ore, and to open the mines of Great Namaqua-land thus aiding in the development of South Africa's inexhaustible treasure-house, while others of them, especially the sons of Jerry, went into the regions of the Transvaal Republic, and there proved themselves Goldboys in very truth, by successfully working the now celebrated gold-fields of that region.
This seems a heavy item for a single day's amusement, but the Messrs Wilson have proved the immense advantage which their boys derive from these excursions: the hope, the stimulus to exertion as only those who have worked hard at school, and behaved well generally, join the cricket-club and the excursionists the health, the incentive to good conduct, and the preservation from evil habits; all these varied good effects have convinced the directors that it is money well spent money that will bring in a richer percentage than government securities or Australian gold-fields could give, for it brings in the percentage of virtue.
He could not help wishing that he were the possessor of the magic carpet mentioned in the Arabian tale, upon which the person seated had only to wish himself to be transported anywhere, and he was carried there in the twinkling of an eye. Joe walked home slowly, dreaming of the gold-fields on the other side of the continent, and wishing he were there. The next day was Saturday.
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