Where once the Indian's tepee held its sway,
Now stands the Golden City on the shore.




[Illustration]

IN CHINA TOWN


If you are a tourist, making your first visit to San Francisco, you
will inquire at once for Chinatown, the settlement of the Celestial
Kingdom, dropped down, as it were, in the very heart of a big city; a
locality where you are as far removed from anything American as if you
were in Hongkong or Foochow. Chinatown is only about two blocks wide
by eight blocks long; yet in this small area from ten to fifteen
thousand Chinese live, and cling with all the tenacity of the race to
their Oriental customs and native dress. They are as clean as a new
pin about their person, but how they can keep so immaculate amid such
careless and not over-clean surroundings is a mystery not to be solved
by a white man.

For a few dollars a guide will conduct a party through Chinatown, and
point out all the places of interest; but we preferred to act for
ourselves in this capacity, and saunter from place to place as our
fancy dictated. Stores of all kinds line both sides of Grant Avenue,
formerly called Dupont, where all kinds of Chinese merchandise are
displayed in profusion. At one place we stopped to examine some most
exquisite ivory carvings, as delicate in tracery as frost on a window