On arriving in California I was surprised at the number of old acquaintances I encountered.  When leaving New York I could think of only two or three persons I knew in San Francisco, but I met at least a dozen before being on shore twelve hours.  Through these individuals, I became known to many others, by a rapidity of introduction almost bewildering.  Californians are among the most genial and hospitable people in America, and there is no part of our republic where a stranger receives a kinder and more cordial greeting.  There is no Eastern iciness of manner, or dignified indifference at San Francisco.  Residents of the Pacific coast have told me that when visiting their old homes they feel as if dropped into a refrigerator.  After learning the customs of the Occident, one can fully appreciate the sensations of a returned Californian.

[Illustration:  Montgomery street in holiday dress.]

Montgomery street, the great avenue of San Francisco, is not surpassed any where on the continent in the variety of physiognomy it presents.  There are men from all parts of America, and there is no lack of European representatives.  China has many delegates, and Japan also claims a place.  There are merchants of all grades and conditions, and professional and unprofessional men of every variety, with a long array of miscellaneous characters.  Commerce, mining, agriculture, and 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 “Beyond the Mississippi,” by Albert D. Richardson, my friend and associate for several years.  The particulars of his death by assassination are familiar to many readers.]