, and left to draw my own conclusions. Protect me from the wrath
of an outraged community if these letters be ever read by American eyes.
San Francisco is a mad city--inhabited for the most part by perfectly
insane people whose women are of a remarkable beauty. When the _City of
Peking_ steamed through the Golden Gate I saw with great joy that the
block-house which guarded the mouth of the "finest harbour in the world,
Sir," could be silenced by two gunboats from Hong-Kong with safety,
comfort, and despatch.

Then a reporter leaped aboard, and ere I could gasp held me in his
toils. He pumped me exhaustively while I was getting ashore, demanding,
of all things in the world, news about Indian journalism. It is an awful
thing to enter a new land with a new lie on your lips. I spoke the truth
to the evil-minded Custom-house man who turned my most sacred raiment on
a floor composed of stable-refuse and pine-splinters; but the reporter
overwhelmed me not so much by his poignant audacity as his beautiful
ignorance. I am sorry now that I did not tell him more lies as I passed
into a city of three hundred thousand white men. Think of it! Three
hundred thousand white men and women gathered in one spot, walking upon
real pavements in front of real plate-glass windowed shops, and talking
something that was not very different from English. It was only when I
had tangled myself up in a hopeless maze of small wooden houses, dust,
street-refuse, and children who play with empty kerosene tins, that I
discovered the difference of speech.

"You want to go to the Palace Hotel?" said an affable youth on a dray.
"What in hell are you doing here, then? This is about the lowest place
in the city. Go six blocks north to corner of Geary and Market; then
walk around till you strike corner of Gutter and Sixteenth, and that
brings you there."

I do not vouch for the literal accuracy of these directions, quoting but
from a disordered memory.

"Amen," I said. "But who am I that I should strike the corners of such
as you name? Peradventure they be gentlemen of repute, and might hit
back. Bring it down to dots, my son."

I thought he would have smitten me, but he didn't. He explained that no
one ever used the word "street," and that every one was supposed to know
how the streets run; for sometimes the names were upon the lamps and
sometimes they weren't. Fortified with these directions I proceeded till
I found a mighty street full of sumptuous bui