Gerstäcker's Travels: Rio de Janeiro - Buenos Ayres - Ride Through the Pampas - Winter Journey Across the Cordilleras - Chili -Valparaiso - California and the Gold Fields

Friedrich Gerstäcker

Jan. 1854 · T. Nelson

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Friedrich Gerstäcker (1816-1872), a native of Hamburg, left Germany in 1837 for a six-year stay in New York. On his return to Germany, he published two travel memoirs, and the Frankfurt government subsidized his return to America in 1849 to collect information for prospective emigrants to California. On his return home, he published several books dealing with his travels. Gerstäcker's travels (1854) is the English edition of the author's Reisen, published in Germany not long after his return to California. Nearly one half of the book is devoted to the sea journey with stops in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and the Argentine pampas, crossing the Cordilleras to Valparaiso, Chile, where he obtained passage to California. He describes San Francisco and Sacramento in the fall of 1849 as well as his experiences as a prospector on the Feather River. Leaving the gold fields, Gerstäcker then spends several weeks at the Mission Dolores before trying his luck in 1850 at the goldfields beyond Stockton at Murphy's Diggings, San Antonio, and Mokelumne. He concludes with his voyage home from California via Honolulu, Australia, and the Dutch East Indies.