otherwise peculiar, and refuses the proffered fare, for--am I not a
citizen of San Francisco, which was first to respond to the suffering
cry of Sacramento? and is not he, Giuseppe, a member of the Howard
Society? No! Giuseppe is poor, but cannot take my money. Still, if I
must spend it, there is the Howard Society, and the women and children
without food and clothes at the Agricultural Hall.

I thank the generous gondolier, and we go to the Hall--a dismal, bleak
place, ghastly with the memories of last year's opulence and plenty,
and here Giuseppe's fare is swelled by the stranger's mite. But here
Giuseppe tells me of the "Relief Boat" which leaves for the flooded
district in the interior, and here, profiting by the lesson he has
taught me, I make the resolve to turn my curiosity to the account of
others, and am accepted of those who go forth to succor and help the
afflicted. Giuseppe takes charge of my carpetbag, and does not part from
me until I stand on the slippery deck of "Relief Boat No. 3."

An hour later I am in the pilothouse, looking down upon what was once
the channel of a peaceful river. But its banks are only defined by
tossing tufts of willow washed by the long swell that breaks over a
vast inland sea. Stretches of "tule" land fertilized by its once regular
channel and dotted by flourishing ranchos are now cleanly erased. The
cultivated profile of the old landscape had faded. Dotted lines in
symmetrical perspective mark orchards that are buried and chilled in the
turbid flood. The roofs of a few farmhouses are visible, and here and
there the smoke curling from chimneys of half-submerged tenements shows
an undaunted life within. Cattle and sheep are gathered on Indian mounds
waiting the fate of their companions whose carcasses drift by us, or
swing in eddies with the wrecks of barns and outhouses. Wagons are
stranded everywhere where the tide could carry them. As I wipe the