Avenue--Grand Reception--Art in California--Cost of Living in
1849--Hotels and Private Houses now--Restaurants--New City
Hall--Monumental Group--Scenes and Representations--History of a
Cannon--Chance Meeting with General Shafter--Mission of the Republic.


The streets of the city! They are an important feature, and the
traveller naturally observes their direction and studies their
character. In the description of New Jerusalem, St. John noted the
fact that its street was "pure gold." The streets of earthly cities
cannot vie with the celestial, though the gold of commerce may be
found in their warehouses and mansions; but if men were as earnest in
seeking after the treasures of Heaven as were the tens of thousands
who flocked to the gold-fields of California in 1849, they would
surely win the fortune which awaits them within the Golden Gate of the
City on the banks of the Crystal River. San Francisco has her noted
streets, just as the City of Mexico has her San Francisco promenade,
leading from the Alameda to the Plaza de Zocalo; or Rome her famous
Corso, the old Via Flaminia, with its shops and its teeming life; or
Athens her Hodos Hermou, with its old Byzantine church of Kapnikaraea;
or Constantinople her Grande Rue de Pera, with its hotels and theatres
and bazaars; or old Damascus, her "street that is called straight,"
Suk et-Tawileh, the street of the Long Bazaar, with its Oriental life
and colouring; or Cairo her picturesque Muski, where you may find
illustrations of scenes in the Arabian Nights, and gratify your senses
with

"Sabean odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the Blest."