She had been told by Captain Langford that during the year more than eight-hundred of the vessels that had been anchored in the cove were abandoned by their crews who had jumped ship to join the gold rush. It was an eerie sight to see the empty hulks bobbing up and down, waves slapping against their hulls. From her vantage point on deck, Julie could see a filthy clutter of small, crude buildings sprawled haphazardly along deeply rutted roads. It was not exactly what she had expected. Even Polly, standing next to Julie, appeared dismayed. They had assumed that San Francisco was a thriving city, but from what they could make out it was little more than a sprawling, overgrown slum. It was several hours later before the thirty young ladies, led by a beaming Julius Goddard and his pleasant wife, disembarked. The group walked sedately through crowded streets to a hostel type hotel where they would be housed until the next day when they met their husbands for the first time. Their trunks were to follow in a horse-drawn wagon.
