to fifty cents. I sold the _New York Herald_, that was more than a
month old, that contained the latest news there from the States in the
interior, for $5, and the man coaxed it out of me at that, for I wanted
to give it to a party of friends I was going to see in the mining
districts. I knew it would be a great treat to them. It is almost
impossible to recall all the exact scenes of those days, so as to have
them fully realized by the reader.

The city of San Francisco was extending more rapidly in what they called
the Happy Valley district, which was toward the Mission of Dolores,
established by the Jesuits. I visited it when the building was intact. I
recollect a painting of an Indian warrior, with his bows and arrows, the
implements of war, represented as a saint ascending to heaven--I suppose
to create favorable impression on Indians and make converts of them.

My friend was going on with his brewery, and borrowing money and getting
me deeper on his paper. He heard that I had $2,500 deposited with
McCondery & Co., and pleaded with me to let him have it as it would
carry him through. I had lost all confidence in him, and felt it would
be like throwing it in the sea. I informed him that I had shipped it
the day before, which I had not, but went right down and gave an order
for its shipment, for fear he might over-persuade me to let him have it,
and I thus saved it. When most completed, a barrel of alcohol that was
in the building bursted, and it ran down to the furnace and set it on
fire, and burnt it up. That was the fate of the first brewery started in
California. Since then there have been millions made in that business
there.

The North Beach property, after I had sold all my houses out, I closed
my interest in. It proved a failure to use for a wharf or shipping
point.

During the seven months of summer the north-west wind blew there so hard
every afternoon that it was not a safe place for vessels, and the
property would never have any value for that purpose, and I do not think
it has ever been used since for that.

In the winter months, which is generally the rainy season, the wind
blows from the south for five months, and the other seven months it
blows from the north-west over six thousand miles of ocean, and,
consequently, is not impregnated with any decayed vegetable matter, and
is as pure as air can be. In San Francisco the sun would rise in a clear
sky every morning and there would be a perfect calm;