It was on the morning of Wednesday, October the second, 1901, when I had my first view of that Queen City of the Pacific coast, San Francisco. Our train, fully nine hours late, in our journey from Salt Lake City, arrived at its destination on the great Oakland pier or mole at 2:30 A.M. The understanding with the conductor the evening before, as we were descending the Sierra Nevada Mountains, was that we would not be disturbed until day break. When the end of our long journey was reached I was oblivious to the world of matter in midnight slumber; but as soon as the wheels of the sleeping coach had ceased to revolve I was aroused with the cry, "Ticket!" First I thought I was dreaming, as I had heard the phrase, "Show your tickets," so often; but the light of "a lantern dimly burning" and a stalwart figure standing before the curtains of my sleeping berth, soon convinced me that I was in a world of reality. This, I may say, was my only experience of the kind, in all my travelling over the Southern Pacific Railway, the Sante Fé, and the Mexican International and Mexican Central Railways. There was little sleep after the interruption; and when the morning came with its interest and novelty I was ready to proceed across the Bay of San Francisco. Our faithful porter, John Williams, whose name is worthy of mention in these pages, as I stepped from the Pullman car, said, "Good-bye, Colonel!" He always addressed me as "Colonel." The porters on all the western roads and on the Mexican railways are polite and obliging, and a word of commendation must be said for them as a class.