L'or by Blaise Cendrars Read Free Book Online Page B

kind of fruit-tree. He acclimatizes olive and fig-trees on the lower, more sheltered ground; apple and pear-trees on the hills. He starts the first cotton plantations and, on the banks of the Sacramento, experiments with rice and indigo.
    And finally he realizes a desire that has long lain close to his heart: he plants vines. At great expense, he has vine-stock brought over from the Rhine and from Burgundy. In the northern part of his estates, on the banks of the Feather River, he has had built a sort of country seat or manor house. It is his retreat. The Hermitage. Clumps of tall trees shade the house. All around, there are gardens with huge beds of carnation and heliotrope. There his finest fruits grow, cherries,  apricots, peaches and quinces. His choicest pedigree cattle graze in the meadows.
    Now, every step leads him towards his vineyards. When he goes for a walk, it is to see his vines, his Hochheimer, his Chambertin, his Château-Chinon.
    As he caresses his favourite dog in the shade of a pergola, he dreams of bringing his family over from Europe, of lavishly repaying his creditors, of regaining his civic rights and redeeming the honour of his name; also, of endowing his little birthplace, so far away . . . Sweet dreams.
    My three sons will come, they will have work, they must be men by now. And my daughter, how is she? I know! I'll order a grand piano for her, from Pleyel in Paris. It will be brought along the route I travelled long ago, on the backs of bearers if need be . . . Maria . . . All my old friends . . .
    Reverie.
    His pipe has gone out. He gazes into the far distance. The first stars are coming out. His dog lies motionless.
    Reverie. Calm. Repose.
    It is Peace.

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SEVENTH CHAPTER
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    27
    Reverie. Calm. Repose.
    It is Peace.
    No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No: it is GOLD!
    It is gold.
    The gold rush.
    The world is infected with gold fever.
    The great gold rush of 1848, 1849, 1850 and 1851. It will last for fifteen years.
    SAN FRANCISCO!

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EIGHTH CHAPTER
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    28
    And all this is triggered off by the simple blow of a pickaxe.
    These stampeding mobs of people. First, they come from New York and all the ports on the Atlantic coast, and then, immediately afterwards, from the hinterland and the Middle West. It is a veritable flood. Men pack themselves into the holds of steamers going to Chagres. Then they cross the isthmus, on foot, wading through the swamps. Ninety per cent of them die of yellow fever. The survivors who reach the Pacific coast charter sailing-ships.
    San Francisco! San Francisco!
    The Golden Gate.
    Goat Island.
    The wooden wharves, the muddy streets of the nascent town, which are paved with sacks full of flour.
    Sugar costs five dollars, coffee ten, an egg twenty, an onion two hundred, a glass of water a thousand. Shots ring out and the 45 revolver does duty for a sheriff. And behind this first human wave come more, and still more, hurling themselves in a great tide, and coming now from much further away - from the shores of Europe, Asia, Africa, from North and South.
    In 1856, more than six hundred ships enter the Bay; they disgorge an endless stream of people who instantly throw themselves into the search for gold.
    San Francisco! San Francisco!
    And another magic name: SUTTER.
    The name of the workman who struck that famous blow with the pickaxe is not widely known.
    It was James W. Marshall, a carpenter by trade and a native of New Jersey.
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    John Augustus Sutter, not merely the first American millionaire, but the first multimillionaire in the United States, is ruined by that blow of the pickaxe.
    He is forty-five years old.
    And after having ventured all, risked all, dared all and created for himself a way of life, he is ruined by the discovery of gold-mines on his lands.
    The richest mines in the world.
    The fattest nuggets.
    The end of the rainbow.
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    But let us hear from John Augustus Sutter himself.
    The following chapter is copied from a thick book whose parchment