[iv], 238 pp. (8vo) 17x10.4 cm. (6¾x4") modern morocco-backed marbled boards, original wrappers bound in. First Edition.

Issued as part of a long French series of lively travel books, "Bibliotheque des Chemins de Fer," intended to be sold as light reading to train passengers. Because Auger was a sightseer in California and not involved in the scramble for gold, his account projects a more dispassionate view than most contemporary gold rush narratives. His description of a cockfight in Panama is highly unusual, and he devotes an entire chapter to lynchings, several of which he describes as an eyewitness. He regarded the religious revivals that he witnessed in the mining camps as a spectacle worthy of the Middle Ages. Cowan (II), p. 23; Howes A393; Kurutz 24; Norris 154; Rocq 15679.