tions,
soon to be nameless. By and by they were all carried hence; and those
that were far away, watching and waiting for the loved and absent
adventurers, watched and waited in vain. A change come o'er the spirit
of the place. The site is now marked by the New City Hall--in all
probability the most costly architectural monstrosity on this continent.

"From grave to gay" is but a step; "from lively to severe," another,--I
know not which of the two is longer. It was literally from grave to gay
when the old San Franciscans used to wade through the sandy margin of
Yerba Buena cemetery in search of pleasure at Russ' Garden on the
mission road. It flourished in the early Fifties--this very German
garden, the pride and property of Mr. Christian Russ. It was a little
bit of the Fatherland, transported as if by magic and set down among the
hillocks toward the Mission Dolores. Well I remember being taken there
at intervals, to find little tables in artificial bowers, where sat
whole families as sedate, or merry, and as much at ease as if they were
in their own homes. They would spend Sunday there, after Mass. There was
always something to be seen, to be listened to, to be done. Meals were
served at all hours, and beer at all minutes; and the program contained
a long list of attractions,--enough to keep one interested till ten or
eleven o'clock at night.

I can remember how scanty the foliage was--it resembled a little the
toy-villages that are made in the Tyrol, having each of them a handful
of impossible trees that breathe not balsam, but paint. I remember the
high wind that blew in bravely from the sea; the pavilion that was a
wonder-world of never-failing attractiveness; and how on a certain
occasion I watched with breathless anxiety and dumb amazement a man,
who seemed to have discarded every garment common to the race, wheel a
wheelbarrow with a grooved wheel up a tight rope stretched from the
ground to the outer peak of the pavilion; and all the time there was a
man in the wheelbarrow who seemed paralyzed with fright,--as no doubt he
was. The man who wheeled the barrow was the world-famous Blondin.

[Illustration: Russ Gardens, 1856]

Another sylvan retreat was known as "The Willows." There were some
willows there, but I fear they were numbered; and there was an _al
fresco_ theatre such as one sees in the Champs-Elysees; indeed, the
place had quite a Frenchy atmosphere, and was not at all German, as was
Russ' Garden. F