# California Inter Pocula

Published after Bancroft's History of the Pacific States of North America series. As with most of the series, several authors have been subsequently credited. See: The Origin and Authorship of the Bancroft Pacific States Publications
CALIFORNIA
INTER POCULA.
A REVIEW OF SOME CLASSICAL ABNORMITIES.
BY
HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT.
Pape Satan, Pape Satan, aleppe!
Dante.
SAN FRANCISCO:
THE HISTORY COMPANY, PUBLISHERS.
1888
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1888, by
HUBERT H. BANCROFT,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
All Rights Reserved.
PREFACE.
So full of oddities, and crudities, and strange developments, consequent upon unprecedented combinations of nationalities, characters and conditions, were the flush times of California, that to condense them into the more solid forms of history without to some extent stifling the life that is in them and marring their originality and beauty is not possible. There are topics and episodes and incidents which cannot be vividly portrayed without a tolerably free use of words — T do not say a free use of the imagination.
Much has been written of the Californian Inferno of 1849 and the years immediately following, much that is neither fact nor fable. Great and gaudy pictures have been painted, but few of them bear much resemblance to nature. Many conceits have been thrown off by fertile brains which have given their authors money and notoriety ; but the true artist who, with the hand of the master drawing from life, places before the observer the all-glowing facts, unbesmeared by artificial and deceptive coloring, has yet to appear.
No attempt is made in these pages to outdo my predecessors in morbid intensifications of the certain phases of society and character engendered of the times. They contain simple sketches and plain descriptions, historical rather than fantastical, with no effort toward effect.
CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME.
| CHAPTER I. | PAGE |
| THE VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA | 1 |
| CHAPTER II. |
| THREE CENTURIES OF WILD TALK ABOUT GOLD IN CALIFORNIA | 25 |
| CHAPTER III. |
| FURTHER RUMORS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA PRIOR TO THE DISCOVERY BY MARSHALL. | 44 |
| CHAPTER IV. |
| AFFAIRS ABOUT THE COLOMA SAW-MILL DURING THE SPRING OF 1848 | 62 |
| CHAPTER V. |
| THE JOURNEY OVERLAND | 89 |
| CHAPTER VI. |
| THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA—NEW YORK TO CHAGRES | 121 |
| CHAPTER VII. |
| THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA—ISTHMUS OF PANAMA | 165 |
| CHAPTER VIII. |
| THE VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA—PANAMA TO SAN FRANCISCO | 190 |
| CHAPTER IX. |
| EL DORADO | 225 |
| CHAPTER X. |
| CLASSICAL ABNORMITIES | 248 |
| CHAPTER XI. |
| SAN FRANCISCO | 260 ​ |
| CHAPTER XII. |
| SOCIETY | 294 |
| CHAPTER XIII. |
| FURTHER ABNORMITIES | 315 |
| CHAPTER XIV. |
| BUSINESS | 334 |
| CHAPTER XV. |
| ILLUSTRATIONS OF LIFE AND CHARACTER | 361 |
| CHAPTER XVI. |
| AMONG THE MINERS | 381 |
| CHAPTER XVII. |
| SQUATTERISM | 396 |
| CHAPTER XVIII. |
| PACIFIC COAST PRISONS | 413 |
| CHAPTER XIX. |
| SOME INDIAN EPISODES | 436 |
| CHAPTER XX. |
| SOME CHINESE EPISODES | 561 |
| CHAPTER XXI. |
| COURTS OF JUSTICE AND COURT SCENES. | 582 |
| CHAPTER XXII. |
| DRINKING | 658 |
| CHAPTER XXIII. |
| GAMBLING | 685 |
| CHAPTER XXIV. |
| DUELLING | 734 |
| CHAPTER XXV. |
| TALES OF THE TIMES | 785 |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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