Just outside the Golden
Gates, lashed by the waters of the Pacific, is a large solitary rock,
called the Seal Rock. Hundreds of seals live on it, finding their
food in the ocean. No one is allowed to molest them, but the
fishermen on the coast cannot regard them with favour, for they must
devour tons of fish daily. The said rock, covered with seals, some
sleeping, some playing, rolling off into the water, and clambering
out of it, is a very curious and characteristic sight as you enter
the bay.

Living in San Francisco is very cheap as regards the cost for food.
Fruit, as I have said, is far cheaper there than anywhere in the
world. It is quite incredible what a few pence will procure in that
way. Enough of splendid grapes, apricots, greengages, currants,
strawberries, and what not to last three or four people several days.
The price of meat too is very low. Mutton or beef, which costs here
in England say 10_d._, per pound, can be had there for 3_d._ to 4_d._
Vegetables are the same. Bread is cheap too, say three-quarters the
price it commands here. Thus very little will keep body and soul
together in San Francisco, but outside bare necessaries in the way of
food, most things are dear. Groceries are about the same cost as in
England. Furniture, and the many things required in a house, are all
much dearer, but this of course only affects the poor in a measure.
There are no beggars, no very poor, in San Francisco, for labour is
in demand; the climate necessitates but a small outlay for fuel and
clothes; and as for food, what better meal than bread and grapes, the
latter to be had almost for the asking.

San Francisco is a very cosmopolitan town. All nationalities are to
be found there. In the first gold fever days crowds poured in from
all parts of the world, and they or their descendants are there
still. Perfect as San Francisco is as a city, it is not thirty years
since a small fishing village alone stood there. How such a perfect
town has been erected in the time is truly a wonder, more wonderful
still that in so many respects it should excel other capitals.

There are curious stories told of those gold-fever days. How law and
order there was none. A man there at that time held his life by a
frail tenure, viz. only as long as he could himself take care of it--

"The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can,"

held in California at that time