But the Chinatown of to-day is not the Chinatown existent before the great disaster of 1906.  It has changed, and that for the better, better both for the city and the Chinaman.

Mr. Arnold Genthe, in his Old Chinatown, says:  “I think we first glimpsed the real man through our gradual understanding of his honesty.  American merchants learned that none need ever ask a note of a Chinaman in any commercial transaction; his word was his bond.”  And while they still have their joss houses, worship their idols, gamble, and smoke opium, they are their own worst enemies; they do not bother the white men, and are generally considered a law unto themselves.

As we pass on down Grant Avenue we meet a crowd gathered around a bulletin board, where hundreds of red and yellow posters are displayed.  All are excited, chattering like magpies, as they discuss the latest bulletin of a Tong war, or some other notice of equal interest; and here we leave them, and Chinatown also, passing over the line out of the precincts of the Celestial, and into our own “God’s country.”

[Illustration]

In a Glass-bottom Boat

About one hundred miles south of San Francisco lies the beautiful Monterey Bay.  Here hundreds of fishing boats of all styles and sizes tug at their anchors, awaiting the turn of the tide to sail out and cast their lines for baracuta, yellowtail, and salmon, which abound in these waters to gladden the heart of the sturdy fisherman.  One may forego the pleasure of fishing if so inclined, and take a sail in the glass-bottom boat, viewing through its transparent bottom the wonders of the mighty deep.

There were fifteen in our party, ranged along each side of the boat.  Curtains were let down from the outside, practically cutting off all outside light and making the bottom of the sea as light as day.  Our boatman informed us, after we were well under way, that we were approaching the place called “The Garden of the Sea Gods,” one of the most beautiful submarine views on the coast.  He did not exaggerate, as we were soon to know, for the scene was truly wonderful, and rightly named.  All kinds of sea life began to pass before our eyes, like the fast changing figures of a kaleidoscope.  Here the delicate sea moss lay like a green carpet, dotted here and there with a touch of purple, making fantastic figures; a place where the sea fairies might dance and hold their revels, as the peasant girls of Normandy dance on the village green.

Close beside this fairy playground great gray rocks rose like sentinels, as if to warn off trespassers.  Clinging to their rugged sides were starfish of all sizes and colors, varying from white to red, with all the intervening shades.  Sea urchins, those porcupines of the deep, with long, prickly spines, looking like a lady’s pincushion, were in profusion, and clung tenaciously to every rock.  Now our boat glides over a canon whose rugged sides extend away down into the depths, and on either side the verdure grows tier on tier, like a veritable forest.  We wonder what denizens of the deep are lurking under the shadows and amid the stately aisles, to dart out on the unsuspecting victim.