y and around these islands, which one can never
forget. The steamer "Berkeley" was courteously placed at the service
of the members of the Convention by the officers of the Southern
Pacific Railway; and it was indeed a most enjoyable afternoon under
clear and balmy skies as we rode along the shores of the Peninsula,
and up the eastern side of the Bay, and northward towards San Pablo,
and then around Angel Island and Alcatraz strongly fortified, a
distance altogether of forty miles. But now on the first morning,
veiled partly with clouds, San Francisco rises on the view, that city
of so many memories by the waters of the Pacific, where many a one has
been wrecked in body and soul as well as in fortune, while others have
grown rich and have led useful lives. Yes, it is San Francisco at
last! And while it looms upon the view with its varied landscape, its
hills and towered buildings, I am reminded of another October morning
when I first saw Constantinople, when old Stamboul with its Seraglio
Point, and Galata with its tower, and Pera on the heights above,
and Yildiz to the east, and Scutari across the Bosphorus, all were
revealed gradually as the mists rolled away. So the Golden City of
the West is disclosed to view as the shadows disappear and the clouds
break and flee away and the morning sun hastening across the lofty
Sierras gilds the homes of the rich and poor alike, and bathes water
and land in beauty. There is another city on the shore of a tideless
sea, and it will be the joyful morning of eternal life, when, earthly
journeys ended, we walk over its golden streets!

CHAPTER III

SAN FRANCISCO AND THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD

San Francisco--Her Hills--Her Landscapes--Population of Different
Decades--The Flag on the Plaza in 1846--Yerba Buena its Earliest
Name--First Englishman and First American to Build Here--The Palace
Hotel--The Story of the Discovery of. Gold in 1848--Sutter and
Marshall--The News Spread Abroad--Multitudes Flock to the Gold
Mines--San Francisco in 1849.

As we stand on the deck of the bay steamer and are fast approaching
the San Francisco ferry-house which looms up before us in dignity, we
look out on a great city with a population of 350,000 souls, and we
observe that it is seated on hills as well as on lowlands. Rome loved
her hills, Corinth had her Acropolis, and Athens, rising out of the
Plain of Attica, was not content until she had crowned Mars' Hill with
altars and her Acropolis wi