and that betimes amid the laughter of the merry throng in midnight
revelry and above the strains of the "harp and viol" one could have
heard the voices of blasphemy and the sharp, loud reports of pistols
in the hands of careless characters, whose deadly bullets had sent
many a poor unfortunate wayfarer or unwary miner from the gold fields
to his long home.

If, in your saunterings, you go through the central part of the city
you will find Lafayette Square, Alta Plaza, Hamilton Square, Columbia
Square, and Franklin and Jackson Parks, at varying distances from each
other and affording variety to the tourist. In the south section you
will see Buena Vista Park and Garfield Square, while to the west you
have Hill Park and Golden Gate Park. The Golden Gate Park is now
famous the world over and vies in beauty and splendour with Central
Park in New York, nay, in some respects surpasses this, in that it has
a magnificent frontage on the Pacific ocean, a long coast view and a
wide range of sea with the Farallone Islands, about twenty miles off
in the foreground of the picture, and visible on a clear day always,
and most enchanting in the sunset hour as we gazed on them. The Golden
Gate Park dates back only to the year 1870, when the California
Legislature passed an act providing for the improvement of public
parks in San Francisco. At that time this lonely spot, now so like a
dream of fairy land, was but a waste, a wide stretch of sand dunes
among which the winds of the ocean played hide and seek. Its
entrances, with a wide avenue in the foreground running north and
south, are some five miles from the Market Street Ferry. The afternoon
that my friend Ashton and I visited it was clear and balmy. Just as we
were entering the park carriage I was greeted by a young friend from
the East, whom I had not seen for years; and then, more than three
thousand miles away from home, I realised how small our planet is