moment perplexed by the crowd and clamor, answered: "I must put
their names down for the other two berths of your state-room; but,
as soon as the confusion is over, I will make some change whereby
you shall not suffer." As soon as these two women were assigned to
a state-room, they took possession, and I was left out. Their
names were recorded as "Captain Sherman and ladies." As soon as
things were quieted down I remonstrated with the purser, who at
last gave me a lower berth in another and larger state-room on
deck, with five others, so that my two ladies had the state-room
all to themselves. At every meal the steward would come to me, and
say, "Captain Sherman, will you bring your ladies to the table?"
and we had the best seats in the ship.

This continued throughout the voyage, and I assert that "my ladies"
were of the most modest and best-behaved in the ship; but some time
after we had reached San Francisco one of our fellow-passengers
came to me and inquired if I personally knew Mrs. D---, with flaxen
tresses, who sang so sweetly for us, and who had come out under my
especial escort. I replied I did not, more than the chance
acquaintance of the voyage, and what she herself had told me, viz.,
that she expected to meet her husband, who lived about Mokelumne
Hill. He then informed me that she was a woman of the town.
Society in California was then decidedly mixed. In due season the
steamship Lewis got under weigh. She was a wooden ship, long and
narrow, bark-rigged, and a propeller; very slow, moving not over
eight miles an hour. We stopped at Acapulco, and, in eighteen
days, passed in sight of Point Pinoa at Monterey, and at the speed
we were traveling expected to reach San Francisco at 4 A. M. the
next day. The cabin passengers, as was usual, bought of the
steward some champagne and cigars, and we had a sort of ovation for