years--that is so early, so easily, and so naturally acquired by those
living in camps and border-lands.

We descended Telegraph Hill by Dupont Street as far as Pacific Street.
So steep was the way that, at intervals, the modern fire-escape would
have been a welcome aid to our progress. Sidewalks, always of plank and
often not broader than two boards placed longitudinally, led on to steps
that plunged headlong from one terrace to another. From the veranda of
one house one might have leaped to the roof of the house just below--if
so disposed,--for the houses seemed to be set one upon another, so acute
was the angle of their base-line. The town stood on end just there, and
at the foot of it was a foreign quarter.

In those days there were at least four foreign quarters--Spanish,
French, Italian, and Chinese. We knew the Spanish Quarter at the foot of
the hill by the human types that inhabited it; by the balconies like
hanging gardens, clamorous with parrots; and by the dark-eyed senoritas,
with lace mantillas drawn over their blue-black hair; by the shop
windows filled with Mexican pottery; the long strings of cardinal-red
peppers that swung under the awnings over the doors of the sellers of
spicy things; and also by the delicious odors that were wafted to us
from the tables where Mexicans, Spaniards, Chilians, Peruvians, and
Hispano-Americans were discussing the steaming _tamal_, the fragrant
_frijol_, and other fiery dishes that might put to the blush the
ineffectual pepper-pot.

Everywhere we heard the most mellifluous of languages--the "lovely
lingo," we used to call it; everywhere we saw the people of the quarter
lounging in doorways or windows or on galleries, dressed as if they were
about to appear in a rendition of the opera of "The Barber of Seville,"