ncoming tide fluctuated, running as
low as 4,000 and as high as 15,000 per annum. Since, 1868 we have
received from 10,000 to 15,000 yearly.

After supper we leaned from the high balcony, among flowers and
lanterns, and looked down upon the street below; it was midnight, yet
the pavements were not deserted, and there arose to our ears a murmur
as of a myriad humming bees shut in clustering hives; close about us
were housed near twenty thousand souls; shops were open; discordant
orchestras resounded from the theatres; in a dark passage we saw the
flames playing upon the thresholds of infamy to expel the evil shades.

Away off in the Bay in the moonlight, glimmered the ribbed sail of a
fishing junk, and the air was heavy with an indefinable odor which to
this hour puzzles me; but it must be attributed either to sink or
sandal-wood--perchance to both!

"It is a little bit of old China, this quarter of ours," said the
artist, rising to go. And so it is, saving only a noticeable lack of
dwarfed trees and pale pagodas and sprays of willowy bamboo; of clumsy
boats adrift on tideless streams; of toy-like tea gardens hanging among
artificial rocks, and of troops of flat-faced but complaisant people
posing grotesquely in ridiculous perspective.

[Illustration: The Farallones]

WITH THE EGG-PICKERS OF THE FARALLONES

Those who have visited the markets of San Francisco during the egg
season may have noticed the abundance of large and singularly marked
eggs, that are offered for sale by the bushel. The shells of these eggs
are pear-shaped, parti-colored, and very thick. They range in color from
a light green to grey or brown, and are all of them profusely spotted,
or blotted, I might say spattered, with clots of black or brown. Some
are beautiful, with soft tints blended in a delicate lace-like pattern.
Some are very ugly, and look unclean. All are a trifle stale, with a
meat of coarse texture and gamy flavor. But the Italians and the Coolies
are fond of them, and doubtless many a gross finds its way into the
kitchens of the popular cheap restaurants, where, disguised in omelets
and puddings, the quantity compensates for the lack of quality, and the
palate of the rapid eater has not time to analyze the latter. These are
the eggs of the sea-gull, the gull that cries all day among the shipping
in the harbor, follows the river boats until meal-time, and feeds on the
bread that is cast upon the water.[2] How true it is tha