a.

Just once did we pause on the way. One evening our ship turned in its
course and made directly for the land. It seemed that we must be dashed
upon the headlands we were approaching, but as we drew nearer they
parted, and we entered the land-locked harbor of Acapulco, the chief
Mexican port on the Pacific. It was an amphitheatre dotted with
twinkling lights. Our ship was speedily surrounded by small boats of all
descriptions, wherein sat merchants noisily calling upon us to purchase
their wares. They had abundant fruits, shells, corals, curios. They
flashed them in the light of their torches; they baited us to bargain
with them. It was a Venetian _fete_ with a vengeance; for the hawkers
were sometimes more impertinent than polite. It was a feast of lanterns,
and not without the accompaniment of guitars and castanets, and rich,
soft voices.

After that we were eager for the end of it all. There was Santa
Catalina, off the California coast, then an uninhabited island given
over to sunshine and wild goats, now one of the most popular and
populous of California summer and winter resorts--for 'tis all the same
on the Pacific coast; one season is damper than the other, that is the
only difference. The coast grew bare and bleak; the wind freshened and
we were glad to put on our wraps. And then at last, after a journey of
nearly five thousand miles, we slowed up in a fog so dense it dripped
from the scuppers of the ship; we heard the boom of the surf pounding
upon the invisible shore, and the hoarse bark of a chorus of sea-lions,
and were told we were at the threshold of the Golden Gate, and should
enter it as soon as the fog lifted and made room for us.

[Illustration: Fort Point at the Golden Gate]

IV.

IN THE WAKE OF DRAKE

We were buried alive in fathomless depths of fog. We were a fixture
until that fog lifted. It was an impenetrable barrier. Upon the point of
entering one of the most wonderful harbors in the world, the glory of
the newest of new lands, we found ourselves prisoners, and for a time at
least involved in the mazes of ancient history.

In 1535 Cortez coasted both sides of the Gulf of California--first
called the Sea of Cortez; or the Vermilion Sea, perhaps from its
resemblance to the Red Sea between Arabia and Egypt; or possibly from
the discoloration of its waters near the mouth of the Rio Colorado, or
Red River.

In 1577 Captain Drake, even then distinguished as a navigator, fitted
out