s were threatening. The sidewalks were covered with well-dressed
men and women, carrying baskets, bundles, valises, or dragging trunks
to spots of greater temporary safety, soon to be dragged farther, as
the fire kept spreading!

In the safer quarters, every doorstep was covered with the dwelling's
tenants, sitting surrounded with their more indispensable chattels, and
ready to flee at a minute's notice. I think every one must have fasted
on that day, for I saw no one eating. There was no appearance of
general dismay, and little of chatter or of inco-ordinated excitement.

Every one seemed doggedly bent on achieving the job which he had set
himself to perform; and the faces, although somewhat tense and set and
grave, were inexpressive of emotion. I noticed only three persons
overcome, two Italian women, very poor, embracing an aged fellow
countrywoman, and all weeping. Physical fatigue and seriousness were
the only inner states that one could read on countenances.

With lights forbidden in the houses, and the streets lighted only by
the conflagration, it was apprehended that the criminals of San
Francisco would hold high carnival on the ensuing night. But whether
they feared the disciplinary methods of the United States troops, who
were visible everywhere, or whether they were themselves solemnized by
the immensity of the disaster, they lay low and did not "manifest,"
either then or subsequently.

The only very discreditable thing to human nature that occurred was
later, when hundreds of lazy "bummers" found that they could keep
camping in the parks, and make alimentary storage-batteries of their
stomachs, even in some cases getting enough of the free rations in
their huts or tents to last them well into the summer. This charm of
pauperized vagabondage seems all along to have been Satan's most
serious bait to human nature. There was theft from the outset, but
confined, I believe, to petty pilfering.

Cash in hand was the only money, and millionaires and their families
were no better off in this respect than any one. Whoever got a vehicle
could have the use of it; but the richest often went without, and spent
the first two nights on rugs on the bare ground, with nothing but what
their own arms had rescued. Fortunately, those nights were dry and
comparatively warm, and Californians are accustomed to camping
conditions in the summer, so suffering from exposure was less great
than it would have been elsewhere