Eldorado: Or, Adventures in the Path of Empire
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Taylor, Bayard / Cleland, Robert Glass, PUBLISHER: Bison Books, ong>Theong> Eldorado that Bayard Taylor imagined in his youthful poetry was not half so fabulous as ong>theong> California he finally saw in ong>theong> historical year of . He joined ong>theong> flood of Forty-niners, not as a fortune-seeker but as a journalist, ong>sailingong> from New York on a crowded steamer. ong>Theong> sight of San Francisco dazzled him: ong>theong> simmering mountains and water and air, ong>theong> few hundred houses that seemed to multiply before his very eyes, and ong>theong> streets teeming with people "of a diverse and bizarre character." Real estate was booming, and fortunes were being made, lost, and remade in two months. Before Taylor returned to New York via Mexico in he would tour ong>theong> missions, mining camps, and scattered ranches farong>theong>r inland; note ong>theong> agricultural potential of ong>theong> valleys; and talk with ong>theong> overland emigrants. Taking ong>theong> feverish pulse of a pitched-togeong>theong>r society, he would, like everyone else, be changed by California.