When the rootless foundling Eliza Sommers, at the age of sixteen, falls for a striking young revolutionary called Joaquin Andieta it sets her life on a course of travels and adventures that will take her far away from her native Chile and the Enlgish household where she ahs been raised. In the frenzy of the American gold rush Andieta disappears. Eliza, desperate with love When the rootless foundling Eliza Sommers, at the age of sixteen, falls for a striking young revolutionary called Joaquin Andieta it sets her life on a course of travels and adventures that will take her far away from her native Chile and the Enlgish household where she ahs been raised. In the frenzy of the American gold rush Andieta disappears. Eliza, desperate with love and determined to find him, stows away on a ship packed with sailors, adventurers, whores and a gentle Chinese doctor, bound for the harsh frontier town of San Fransisco.