Two Franciscan monks in 1776 founded on this famous bay the Indian Mission of San Francisco de Assis, often called the Mission Dolores, and in course of time there started upon the shore, which had much wild mint growing about, the village of Yerba Buena, named from it the "good herb." Just about the time this lonely little village had got a small Spanish population and built a few houses, Richard Henry Dana came into the bay in 1835 on the voyage which he so pleasantly recounts in _Two Years Before the Mast_. He then prophetically wrote: "If ever California becomes a prosperous country, this bay will be the centre of its prosperity. The abundance of wood and water; the extreme fertility of its shores; the excellence of its climate, which is as near to being perfect as any in the world; and its facilities for navigation affording the best anchoring-grounds in the whole Western coast of America, all fit it for a place of great importance." In the summer of 1846, during the Mexican War, the American navy made various important occupations on the California coasts, and a man-of-war came into San Francisco Bay and took possession for the United States. The next year the name of the village was changed to San Francisco. There were about six hundred inhabitants here when gold was discovered in 1848, and most of them at once left for the gold-fields; but the favorable location for trade soon attracted a large population and an extensive commerce. The young city had the usual mishaps from fires, suffering from a half-dozen serious conflagrations in its early career; while the peculiar character of the population made it then so lawless that twice the better element had to take summary control of the municipal government by "Vigilance Committees," who did not hesitate to promptly execute notorious criminals. There are now three hundred and fifty thousand people, the heterogeneous population including almost every nationality in the world.