manufactures, are all represented. At the wharves there are ships of
all nations. A traveler would find little difficulty, if he so willed
it, in sailing away to Greenland's icy mountains or India's coral
strand. The cosmopolitan character of San Francisco is the first thing
that impresses a visitor. Almost from one stand-point he may see the
church, the synagogue, and the pagoda. The mosque is by no means
impossible in the future.

[Illustration: SAN FRANCISCO, 1848.]

In 1848, San Francisco was a village of little importance. The city
commenced in '49, and fifteen years later it claimed a population of a
hundred and twenty thousand.[B] No one who looks at this city, would
suppose it still in its minority. The architecture is substantial and
elegant; the hotels vie with those of New York in expense and luxury;
the streets present both good and bad pavements and are well
gridironed with railways; houses, stores, shops, wharves, all indicate
a permanent and prosperous community. There are gas-works and
foundries and factories, as in older communities. There are the
Mission Mills, making the warmest blankets in the world, from the wool
of the California sheep. There are the fruit and market gardens whose
products have a Brobdignagian character. There are the immense stores
of wine from California vineyards that are already competing with
those of France and Germany. There are--I may as well stop now, since
I cannot tell half the story in the limits of this chapter.

[Footnote B: I made many notes with a view to publishing two or three
chapters upon California. I have relinquished this design, partly on
account of the un-Siberian character of the Golden State, and partly
because much that I had written is covered by the excellent book