The first letter which I delivered in San Francisco was from a Mormon gentleman to a merchant, who, as he read it, exclaimed: “Ah! so you want to see the lions? I'll pick you up at three, and take you there.” I wondered, but went, as travellers do.

At the end of a pleasant drive along the best road in all America, I found myself upon a cliff overhanging the Pacific, with a glorious outlook, seawards towards the Farallones, and northwards to Cape Benita and the Golden Gate. Beneath, a few hundred yards from shore, was a conical rock, covered with shapeless monsters, plashing the water and roaring ceaselessly, while others swam around. These were “the lions,” my acquaintance said—the sea-lions. I did not enter upon an explanation of our slang phrase, “the lions,” which the Mormon, himself an Englishman, no doubt had used, but took the first opportunity of seeing the remainder of “the lions” of the Golden City.

The most remarkable spot in all America is Mission Dolores, in the outskirts of San Francisco City—once a settlement of the Society of Jesus, and now partly blanket factory and partly church. Nowhere has the conflict between the Saxon and Latin races been so sharp and so decisive.