spires pierced the sky; the smoke from numberless mills and factories, machine-shops and foundries, drifted over the harbor; the horse-car bells tinkled on every side--the last proofs of American progress--and all around us were the din and boom of Yankee energy, and thrift, and go-ahead-ative-ness, in place of the old Rip Van Winkleism. I don't wonder, that all good Pacific Coasters believe in San Francisco, and expect to go there when they die! Her hotels, her school-houses, her churches, her Bank of California, her Wells-Fargo Express, her Mission Woollen Mills, her lines of ocean steam-ships, and a hundred other things, all suggest great wealth and brains; and yet they are only the first fruits of nobler fortune yet to come. She is what Carlyle might call an undeniable fact, a substantial verity; and, in spite of her "heavy job of work," moves onward to empire with giant strides. She contained already fully a third of the population of the whole state of California, and was "lifting herself up like a young lion" in all enterprises--at all times and everywhere--on the Pacific slope. Her faulty location, however, gives her a climate, that can scarcely be called inviting, notwithstanding all that Californians claim for their climate generally. It is true, the range of the thermometer there indicates but a moderate variation of temperature, with neither snow nor frost, usually. But her continual rains in winter, and cold winds and fogs in summer, must be very trying to average nerves and lungs. We found it raining on our arrival there in December, with the hills surrounding the bay already turning green; and it continued to rain and drizzle right along, pretty much all the time, until we departed for Arizona in February. Sometimes it would break away for an hour or two, and the sun would come out resplendently, as if meaning to shine forever; and then, suddenly, it would cloud over, and begin to drizzle and rain again, as if the whole heavens were only a gigantic sieve. Really, it did rain there sometimes the easiest of any place I ever saw--not excepting Fort Vancouver. Going out to drive, or on business, we got caught thus several times, and learned the wisdom of carrying stout umbrellas, or else wearing bang-up hats and water-proof coats, like true Californians. Once, for a fortnight nearly, it rained in torrents, with but little intermission, and then the whole interior became flooded--bridges were washed away, roads submerged, etc. In the midst of this, one night, we had a sharp passage of thunder and lightning--a phenomenon of rare occurrence on that coast--followed by a slight earthquake, and then it rained harder than ever. But at last, the winter rains came to an end, as all things must, and then we had indeed some superb weather, worthy of Italy or Paradise. Californians vowed their winter had been an unusual one; that their January was usually good, and their February very fine; but, of