e
somewhere before daylight. But a new annoyance was in store for me.
The steamboats on these waters are constructed of very frail
materials, and whenever one came into collision with my flotilla, she
immediately sank. This was most exasperating, for the piercing shrieks
of the hapless crews and passengers prevented my getting any sleep.
Such disagreeable voices as these people had would have tortured an
ear of corn. I felt as if I would like to step out and beat them
soft-headed with a club; though of course I had not the heart to do
so while the padlock held fast.

The reader, if he is obliging, will remember that there was formerly
an obstruction in the harbour of San Francisco, called Blossom Rock,
which was some fathoms under water, but not fathoms enough to suit
shipmasters. It was removed by an engineer named Von Schmidt. This
person bored a hole in it, and sent down some men who gnawed out the
whole interior, leaving the rock a mere shell. Into this drawing-room
suite were inserted thirty tons of powder, ten barrels of
nitro-glycerine, and a woman's temper. Von Schmidt then put in
something explosive, and corked up the opening, leaving a long wire
hanging out. When all these preparations were complete, the
inhabitants of San Francisco came out to see the fun. They perched
thickly upon Telegraph Hill from base to summit; they swarmed
innumerable upon the beach; the whole region was black with them. All
that day they waited, and came again the next. Again they were
disappointed, and again they returned full of hope. For three long
weeks they did nothing but squat upon that eminence, looking fixedly
at the wrong place. But when it transpired that Von Schmidt had
hastily left the State directly he had completed his preparations,
leaving the wire floating in the water, in the hope that some
electrical eel might swim against it and ignite the explosives, the
people began to abate their ardour, and move out of town. They said it
might be a good while before a qualified gymnotus would pass that way,
although the State Ichthyologer assured them that he had put some
eels' eggs into the head waters of the Sacramento River not two weeks
previously. But the country was very beautiful at that time of the
year, and the people would not wait. So when the explosion really
occurred, there wasn't anybody in the vicinity to witness it. It was a
stupendous explosion all the same, as the unhappy gymnotus discovered
to his cost.