iskey, and want of proper food are gradually blotting out the
aboriginal tribes of America.

San Francisco, less than forty years of age, is the commercial
metropolis of California, which State, if it lay upon the Atlantic
coast, would extend from Massachusetts to South Carolina. It covers a
territory five times as large as the whole of the New England States
combined, possessing, especially in its southern division, a climate
presenting most of the advantages of the tropics with but few of the
objections which appertain to the low latitudes. The population of San
Francisco already reaches an aggregate of nearly four hundred thousand.
Owing its first popular attraction to the discovery of gold within its
borders, in 1849, California has long since developed an agricultural
capacity exceeding the value of its mineral productions. The future
promise and possibilities of its trade and commerce defy calculation.

The Cliff House, situated four or five miles from the centre of the
city, is a favorite pleasure resort of the population. It stands on a
bluff of the Pacific shore, affording an ocean view limited only by the
power of the human vision. As we look due west from this spot, no land
intervenes between us and the far-away shore of Japan. Opposite the
Cliff House, three hundred yards from the shore, there rises abruptly
out of the sea, from a depth of many fathoms, a rough, precipitous rock,
sixty or seventy feet in height, presenting about an acre of surface.
Sea-lions come out of the water in large numbers to sun themselves upon
this rock, affording an amusing sight from the shore. These animals are
of all sizes, according to age, weighing from fifty to one thousand
pounds, and possessing sufficient muscular power to enable them to climb
the rock, where a hundred are often seen at a time. The half roar, half
bark peculiar to these creatures, sounds harsh upon the ear of the
listeners at the Cliff. The law of the State protects them from
molestation, but they quarrel furiously among themselves. The sea-lion
belongs to the seal family and is the largest of its species.

A week can hardly be more profitably occupied upon our route than by
visiting the Yosemite Valley, where the grandeur of the Alpine scenery
is unsurpassed, and where there are forests which produce giant trees of
over three hundred feet in height and over thirty in diameter. The
ascent of the mountain which forms the barrier to the valley, commences
at