er the wrong way.

In from ten to twenty minutes the boats are along-side again, the messes
are marshalled separately on the deck, and the picnic goes ashore,
to find the band and the impromptu bar awaiting them. Then come the
hampers, which are piled upon the beach, and surrounded by a stern
guard of stalwart asses, axe on shoulder. It is here I take my place,
note-book in hand, under a banner bearing the legend, "Come here for
hampers." Each hamper contains a complete outfit for a separate twenty,
cold provender, plates, glasses, knives, forks, and spoons: an agonized
printed appeal from the fevered pen of Pinkerton, pasted on the inside
of the lid, beseeches that care be taken of the glass and silver. Beer,
wine, and lemonade are flowing already from the bar, and the various
clans of twenty file away into the woods, with bottles under their arms,
and the hampers strung upon a stick. Till one they feast there, in a
very moderate seclusion, all being within earshot of the band. From one
till four, dancing takes place upon the grass; the bar does a roaring
business; and the honorary steward, who has already exhausted himself to
bring life into the dullest of the messes, must now indefatigably dance
with the plainest of the women. At four a bugle-call is sounded; and by
half-past behold us on board again, pioneers, corrugated iron bar, empty
bottles, and all; while the honorary steward, free at last, subsides
into the captain's cabin over a brandy and soda and a book. Free at
last, I say; yet there remains before him the frantic leave-takings
at the pier, and a sober journey up to Pinkerton's office with two
policemen and the day's takings in a bag.

What I have here sketched was the routine. But we appealed to the taste
of San Francisco more distinctly in particular fetes. "Ye Olde Time
Pycke-Nycke," largely advertised in hand-bills beginning "Oyez, Oyez!"
and largely frequented by knights, monks, and cavaliers, was drowned
out by unseasonable rain, and returned to the city one of the saddest
spectacles I ever remember to have witnessed. In pleasing contrast,
and certainly our chief success, was "The Gathering of the Clans,"
or Scottish picnic. So many milk-white knees were never before
simultaneously exhibited in public, and to judge by the prevalence of
"Royal Stewart" and the number of eagle's feathers, we were a high-born
company. I threw forward the Scottish flank of my own ancestry, and
passed muster as a clansma