Description

An orphan raised in Valparaíso, Chile, with a Victorian spinster and her rigid brother, young, vivacious Eliza Sommers follows her lover to California throughout the Gold-Rush of 1849. She enters a rough-and-tumble world whose newly arrived inhabitants are driven mad by gold-fever. With the aid of her close friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chi'en, Eliza moves readily in a community of single men and prostitutes, making an unusual but independent living for himself. The Chilean 's look for her challenging enthusiast slowly becomes a different type of journey, and from the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her real love is really.