g from
branch to branch of trees which grew within their gigantic cages, and
occasionally we heard the notes of some songster. Yonder, too, we saw
deer browsing, and elk and antelope. There also were the buffalo and
the grizzly bear; and apparently all forgot that, shut in as they
were in wide enclosures, they were in captivity. We could not fail to
observe the bright flower-beds on every hand, the pleasant groves, the
shady walks, the grottoes of wild design, the woodland retreats, the
sylvan bowers. The park, we were told by our communicative driver,
John Carter, comprises ten hundred and forty acres of ground. He also
pointed out various places and objects of interest. The Museum, by the
wayside, in its Egyptian architecture, is like one of the old temples
of the Pharaohs on the banks of the Nile.

You are carried into the realm of immortal song when you gaze on the
busts of Goethe and Schiller, and your patriotism is stirred afresh
as you behold the monument of Francis Scott Key, author of the
Star-Spangled Banner. The Muses also have their abode here on the
colonnaded Music Stand or Pavilion erected by Claus Spreckles at a
cost of $80,000. Another interesting feature is the Japanese Tea
Garden. Then there is the well equipped Observatory on Strawberry Hill
from which you can look far out to sea, and where star-gazers can
study celestial scenery as the Heavens declare God's glory. Seven
lakelets give charm to the landscape, but the eye is never weary in
looking on Stone Lake, a mile and a quarter in circuit, beautiful
with its clear waters, its shelving shores, its bays and miniature
headlands, while on its calm bosom, ducks of rich plumage and
Australian swans are disporting themselves.

That, however, which attracted our attention most of all was the great
grey stone cross on the crest of the highest point of the Golden Gate
Park. This, chiseled after the fashion of the old crosses of lona and
linked with the name of St. Columba, is the monument erected by the
late George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, Pa., to commemorate the first
use of the Book of Common Prayer on the Pacific coast, when, in 1579,
under Admiral Drake, Chaplain Fletcher read Prayers in this vicinity,
either in San Francisco Bay, or a little further north in what is
called Drake's Bay. But more of this anon. As we walked from the
carriage road, beneath some spreading trees, to get a nearer view of
the Prayer Book Cross, numerous partridges were mo