Letts traveled the Panama route, arriving in San Francisco on July 4, 1849, and from there headed for Sacramento, Mormon Island, and other points. He departed Sacramento on November 22, and headed for Central America and back to the States. Kurutz notes that "drawing on his personal experience, Letts produced one of the best accounts of gambling, violence, and life in the mines." G.V. Cooper, who executed the drawings from which the lithographs were made, was a traveling companion of Letts. First issue, without the author's name on title-page. Cowan p.390; Graff 2469; Howes L300; Kurutz 978a.