The Chinese and Mexican quarters of the city were a marvel, for both of these peoples had managed to take bits of their own countries in their entirety and transplant them on this sandy soil. San Francisco is unique (as American cities go) in being able to keep within her bosom the civilizations of foreign peoples, in their original state, long enough for them to fertilize and bring forth the best of themselves. Visitors to her shore do not immediately change their manners and customs to agree with hers—perhaps for the very good reason that she hasn’t any to agree with—but if it were no uncommon sight to see a Mexican sombrero, it was no less a common one to see a Chinese woman in native costume, feet bound, in high-stilted slippers, looking for all the world as if she had stepped down from an ancient vase, and propelled up Market Street by her big-footed “amah.” This thoroughfare seemed to fade away at the old city hall, which was then only in the process of construction. In fact, the only landmark which appears to have survived conflagrations and the march of progress is the Cliff House. Although it has burned down several times, each new building immediately takes on the air of the old, and whether, by the intention of its builders or the architectural limitations of the rock upon which it is built, it looks the same to-day as it did when I first saw it in ’75. However one may deplore the mushroom existence of his familiar landmarks downtown, one has only to take a trip—now shorter many minutes by the change from horse to gasoline—out to the Pacific Ocean and, from a little table, sheltered by glass from the might of the winds, look out upon the same horizon, the same calm blue of the waters, and, best of all, the same Seal Rocks with their brown-coated inhabitants (grown woefully smaller in numbers now), sunning themselves and teaching their young that protection lies in remaining near at home.