When in the City of the Golden Gate you will not fail to visit the
Chinese Quarter, or "Chinatown," as it is popularly called. Just as in
an Oriental city like Jerusalem or Constantinople you find different
nationalities or races living apart from each other, so here in
San Francisco you have "Little China" in the heart of Anglo-Saxon
civilisation. It is as if you had unfolded to your wondering eyes in a
dream some town from the banks of the Pearl River, the Yangtse-Kiang,
or the Hwangho or. Yellow River; and it seems strange indeed that,
without the trouble or expense and danger of crossing the waters of
the Pacific, you can by a short walk from the midst of the teeming
life of an American City, be ushered into streets that are foreign in
appearance and where scenes that are unfamiliar to the eye attract
your attention on every hand. With the exception of the houses, which,
as a rule, take on a European or an American style of architecture,
you might imagine that you were in Canton or some other Chinese city.
The life is truly Asiatic and Mongolian in its character and in its
display as well as in its customs. The home of the sons of the Flowery
Kingdom in San Francisco is in the north-eastern section of the city,
and may be said to be in one of the best portions of the metropolis
of the West, sheltered as it is from the winds of the Pacific by the
hills which are back of it, and with a commanding view of the Bay and
its islands and the magnificent landscapes to the east, valleys and
hills running up to the heights of the Sierras. The locality is
bounded by Jackson, Pacific, Dupont, Commercial, and Sacramento
streets, and embraces some eight squares; and within this space,
crowded together, are the twenty-five or thirty thousand Chinese who
form a part of the population of the city. There are Chinamen here and
there in other parts of San Francisco, but nearly all live here in
this quarter which we are now approaching. Here there are the homes of