st themselves, and
it may be many centuries before such a dynamic crisis will arise as
that which has just convulsed a continent."

California has had a number of great earthquakes. The records go back
to the earthquake at Santa Ana in 1769. Not very much is known of this
earthquake, though a church was built there and dedicated as Jesus de
los Temblores.

Another one occurred at Santa Barbara in 1806, and still another in
1812. The Old Mission, about the only building there at that time, on
both occasions practically had to be rebuilt.

Hittell's History of California says that "slight shocks of
earthquakes are not infrequent, but none of really violent or
dangerous character has been known to occur. An old or badly
constructed building has occasionally been thrown down, and a few
people have been killed by falling roofs or walls. But there has been
nothing in the experience of the oldest inhabitants to occasion or
justify fear or dread. The first one of which there is any full record
occurred on October 11, 1800, and consisted of six consecutive shocks,
and it tumbled down the habitations of San Juan Bautista.

"The most disastrous shock occurred in December, 1812, when the church
of San Juan Capistrano was thrown down and forty Indians killed by its
fall. The same shock extended northwestward and damaged the churches
of San Gabriel, San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Inez and
Purisima. In 1818 the church of Santa Clara was damaged, and in 1830
the church of San Luis Obispo."

CHAPTER XIX.

CHINATOWN, A PLAGUE SPOT BLOTTED OUT.

=An Oriental Hell within an American City--Foreign in
its Stores, Gambling Dens and Inhabitants--The Mecca of
all San Francisco Sight Seers--Secret Passages, Opium
Joints and Slave Trade its Chief Features.=

To a visitor unacquainted with oriental customs and manners the most
picturesque and mysterious spot in the region of the Golden Gate was
Chinatown, now blotted out, which laid in the heart of San Francisco,
halfway up the hillside from the bay and was two blocks wide by two
blocks long. In this circumscribed area an Oriental city within an
American city, more than 24,000 Chinese lived, one-half of whom ate
and slept below the level of the streets. The buildings they occupied
were among the finest that were built in the early days of the gold
fever. What was at one time the leading hotel of the city was as full
of Chinese as a hive is full of bees, f