John-

Maybe you'll have to settle for "Bound to California" which is explicitly a Gold Rush era shanty collected by C. Fox Smith from Capt. J. L. Vivian Millett, who remembered it being sung while he was anchored in Algoa Bay. Of course Capt. Millett only remembered the chorus:

Good-bye, my lads, good-bye,
No one can tell me why
I am bound for California
To reap the shining gold!
Good-bye, my lads, good-bye,
No one can tell me why
I am bound for California
To reap the shining gold!

From A Book of Shanties, by Cicely Fox Smith, Methuen & Co., London, © 1927, pp. 27-29.

Hugill mentions this shanty, in reference to Smith, but was unable to find any verses either.

Charley Noble