At half-past six this morning there was a great rapping and thumping on our door, and Captain Scruggs cried, “If you want to see the Faralleeones you’d better come on deck.” Ten minutes later we emerged from the companion-way, but at first could see nothing at all for a chilly fog that lay upon the water, which had, during the night, changed to the muddy green of soundings. By dint of perseverance, though, we saw a large, dark mass loom gradually up until we could plainly discern the brown, sterile cones of the Farallones, which lie about twenty-five miles west of San Francisco Heads. Many persons have been puzzled to know why it is that the majority of the Pacific coast population pronounce the word as though it was spelled Fa-ra-lee-owns. The explanation of it seems to me to be a corruption of the Spanish pronunciation Fa-ralyo-nes, as, of course, the double l in that language has the sound of y. The same can be said of Mollendo, an important Peruvian port in 17° south; for Californians who are not especially erudite call the place Mol-ly-en-do, from the Spanish Mol-yen-do. It will be perceived how readily careless persons could fall into the way of putting an extra syllable in names which contain the double l, from hearing Mexicans and South Americans pronounce the words, which, of course, they do correctly. As we had packed all of our valises, etc., the night before, there was nothing for us to do but to anticipate with pleasurable excitement the entrance into the Golden Gate, for the captain assured us that by eleven o’clock there wouldn’t be a vestige of fog left; this being a peculiarity of the coast climate. Sure enough, at ten the mists began to disperse and a bright glare overhead indicated an impending flood of sunshine. At this moment we heard several sharp whistles ahead, and a tow-boat passed close to us in another minute, and then rounding to, ranged up alongside. How odd a sensation it is to see a new face again after an absence of four months from the retreats of men! Day after day, week after week, we have watched Mr. Goggins relieve Mr. Rarx, and Broadhead relieve Paddy, so steadily that we almost forgot that there was any one else in existence; and when we perceived the captain of the tug-boat standing in the pilot-house in a glistening “biled” shirt and store clothes and a polish on his brown shoes that quite dazzled us, we gazed upon him fascinated, for he was the biggest dude we had seen in nineteen weeks. And how uncouth the ship’s company looked when contrasted with even the tow-boat’s crew! However, we were soon brought to from our reveries by a large bundle of newspapers that the tug’s skipper hove on board; and who can depict the joy of that hour, during which we pored over the journals, marvelling at the commonplace allusions to momentous events which had been almost forgotten by the daily reader?