ld them poised, like exquisite combinations of snowflakes, only more
airy.

Presently he said, "Men don't often speak of these things to each other,
but I feel the beauty of it. Nights when the vessel is moving so fast, I
come and watch here for hours and hours, and dream over it." When I
thought about it afterward, I wondered how he could know that the way to
answer my fear was to show me what was so beautiful. I was not afraid
any more, whatever the vessel did.

Those three days and nights of lonely watching, floating about in the
Straits, must have been a great experience to him, and made him
different from what he would otherwise have been; certainly different
from most men.

Before sunrise, yesterday morning, we passed the "Seal-Rocks;" as the
light just began to reveal a little of the dark, dreamy hills on each
side of the long, beautiful entrance to the harbor. A flood of light
filled it as we entered, and it must have looked just as it did when it
was first named the "Golden Gate." All along, for miles, the water
throws itself up into the air, and falls in fountains on the rocky
shore. I cannot conceive of a more beautiful harbor in the world; and,
as we were two or three hours in coming from the sea up to the city, we
had time enough to enjoy it.

The southern headland of the entrance is Point Lobos (_Punta de los
Lobos_, Point of Wolves); the northern, Point Bonita (Beautiful Point).

MARCH 25, 1875.

We could never have stepped out of our wilderness into a stranger city
than this. From the variety of foreign names and faces that I see in the
streets, I should think I were travelling over the whole world. On one
side of us lives a Danish family, on the other a French. I walk along
and look up at the signs,--"Scandinavian Society;" "Yang Tzy Association
of Shanghae;" "Nuevo Continente Restaurant Mejicano;" "Angelo Beffa,
Helvetia Exchange," with the white cross and plumed hat of Switzerland.
One street is all Chinese, with shiny-haired women, and little mandarins
with long cues of braided red silk. The babies seem to be dressed in
imitation of the idol in the temple; their tight caps have the same
tinsel and trimmings, and the resemblance their little dry faces bear to
it is very curious.

Next to "Tung Wo," "Sun Loy," and "Kum Lum," come "Witkowski,"
"Bukofski," "Rowminski,"--who keep Russian caviar, etc. Some day, when
we feel a little tired of our ordinary food, we think of trying the
caviar, or