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Chronicles of the Builders of the Commonwealth
Chronicles of the Builders of the Commonwealth Author:Hubert Howe Bancroft Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. ROUTES AND TRANSPORTATION—CALIFORNIA. Aboriginal And Pastoral California—The Mexican ( 'aiireta—The Era ur Gold—Steamboating On River And Bay—... more »Boat-building—CompeTition—Disasters—California Steam Navigation Company—ProsPerity And Rapid Development—Navigation Of The Colora no Rivkr —Freighting—Wagon-roads And Wagon-road Traffic—Early Ferries And Bridges. Children of earth have no conception of transportation, and the ideas of the Franciscan fathers, who introduced beasts of burden in California, wore but little in advance of them. True, they had horses, oxen, and the carreta, but no wagon roads. Before mining was begun in California, and extraordinary requirements for transportation were called for, horses were slaughtered by thousands simply to reduce their numbers; but their value rose with their usefulness ; and although the sullen-tempered and often too vicious California!! horses were less esteemed than imported stock, they became a source of wealth to their owners. When overland immigration set in, on a number of ranchos purchased by or granted to Americans were placed the superior draught animals of the United States, with the wagons which had rolled all the way from the Missouri to the Sacramento. In the autumn of 1848 caravans of ox-teams with wagon-loads of provisions, tools, and lumber, pioneered their way intp California from Oregon, and were eagerly purchased for transportation by the sea- brought gold-seekers and merchant-adventurers who had cargoes for the mines. But owing to the want of improved wagon-roads, pack-animals were chiefly relied on, and particularly the mountain-scaling muleualities of toughness M|i tf land traffic no com- d to exist, although kept a schooner of |ome time purchased cljnpany. This launch 8 Bused for trading pur-...« less