what
we had especially missed throughout our voyage. Beef, fortunately, had
dropped one-half in price; from five francs it had gone down to fifty
cents a pound. Of our supplies, some sugar and coffee still remained.
What our messengers reported was that current prices of all commodities
had soared. Bread varied from twenty-five to thirty centimes a pound;
however, so we were told, this had recently been worth one piastre.* A
room measuring six by eight feet, rented for 500 francs a month, rent
to be paid in advance. A small house of three or four rooms rented for
3,000 francs a month.
On
Portsmouth Square The El Dorado house had cost 5,500,000 francs to
build. This house took in rentals 625,000 francs each month. This is
readily understood by explaining that a bricklayer receives from 40 to
60, and a carpenter from 80 to 100 francs daily. Land that was being
granted almost gratuitously by the government only six to eight months
before our arrival was valued, at the beginning of 1850, at from
100,000 to 150,000 francs for a piece 100 feet square. We saw one of
our fellow-countrymen once purchase at public auction land measuring 45
by 50 feet for 60,000 francs, payable over five years; this he rented
for 18 months at a price of 65,000 francs, with the understanding that
all improvements made would revert to him at the end of that period.
This
same ratio held true with all things, both large and small. Much joking
went the rounds about the poor egg-merchant who, watching a seller of
marrons make a fortune crying, "Marrons from Lyon," was induced to cry,
"Fresh eggs from Lyon." This merchant may have made his fortune at San
Francisco, where eggs just over from France sold for five francs. A
story was told about two Gruyere cheese, that has become almost
proverbial in San Francisco; since these were the only Gruyere cheese
that had ever reached port, they belonged to the aristocracy and sold
for as much as thirteen francs a pound.
Two
boatmen with their skiff received 200 francs for six hours. A pair of
sea-boots that reached up above the knees, indespensable articles for
walking during the rainy season in the low sections of the city, were
worth in winter from 200 to 250 francs, and 100 to 150 francs in the
summer season. Physicians were numerous; the majority,
* Botht he Spansh piastre and the American dollar were legal tender in San Francisco.
