However debilitated they might be, however penniless and destitute, this city, the great focus of mining news, the nearest trading point for the mines situated upon a navigable stream, was the only place that men could think of stopping at for recuperative purposes. Hence, from Cape Horn, from all the Isthmian routes, from' Asiatic seaports and from the islands of the Pacific, men of the most impoverished health were converging at Sacramento.