Marshall--The News Spread Abroad--Multitudes Flock to the Gold
Mines--San Francisco in 1849.


As we stand on the deck of the bay steamer and are fast approaching
the San Francisco ferry-house which looms up before us in dignity, we
look out on a great city with a population of 350,000 souls, and we
observe that it is seated on hills as well as on lowlands. Rome loved
her hills, Corinth had her Acropolis, and Athens, rising out of the
Plain of Attica, was not content until she had crowned Mars' Hill with
altars and her Acropolis with her Parthenon. Here in this golden
city of the Pacific the houses are climbing the hills, nay they have
climbed them already and they vie in stateliness with palaces and
citadels in the old historic places which give picturesqueness to the
coast lands of the Mediterranean. There is indeed in the aspect of San
Francisco, in her waters and her skies, and all her surroundings, that
which recalls to my mind landscapes and scenery of Italy and Greece
and old Syria. Yonder to the northeast of the city is Telegraph Hill,
294 feet high, a spot which in the olden days, that is, as far back
only as 1849, was wooded. Now it is teeming with life, and it looks
down with seeming satisfaction on miles and miles of streets and
warehouses and dwellings of rich and poor. But there are not many poor
people in this Queen City. In all my wanderings about the city for a
month, I was never accosted by a professional beggar. Everybody could
find work to do, and all seemed prosperous and happy. Off to the
west, serving as a sentinel, is Russian Hill, 360 feet high. It is
a striking feature in the ever-expanding city, and it is a notable
landmark for the San Franciscan. In the southeastern part of the city
is Rincon Hill, 120 feet in height, attracting to itself the interest
of that part of the population whose homes are in its shadow. There