It became evident that an efficient fire department was an immediate and imperative necessity. The best men of the city--men prominent in every trade, calling and profession--volunteered their services, and headed a subscription list that swelled at once into the thousands. Perhaps there never was a finer volunteer fire department than that which was for many years the pride and glory of San Francisco. On the Fourth of July it was the star feature of the procession; and it paraded most of the streets that were level enough for wheels to run on--and when the mud was navigable, for they turned out even in the rainy season on days of civic festivity. Their engines and hose carts and hook and ladder trucks were so lavishly ornamented with flowers, banners, streamers, and even pet eagles, dogs, and other mascots, that they might without hesitation have engaged in any floral battle on any Riviera and been sure of victory. The magnificence of the silver trumpets and the quantity and splendor of the silver trappings of those fire companies pass all belief. It begins to seem to me now, as I write, that I must have dreamed it,--it was all so much too fine for any ordinary use. But I know that I did not dream it; that there was never anything truer or better or more efficient anywhere under the sun than the San Francisco fire department in the brave days of old. Representatives of almost every nation on earth could testify to this, and did repeatedly testify to it in almost every language known to the human tongue; for there never was a more cosmical commonwealth than sprang out of chaos on that Pacific coast; and there never was a city less given to following in the footsteps of its elder and more experienced sisters. Nor was there ever a more spontaneous outburst of happy-go-luckiness than that which made of young San Francisco a very Babel and a bouncing baby Babylon. [Illustration: Warner's at Meigg's Wharf] VII. A BOY'S OUTING There was joy in the heart, luncheon in the knapsack, and a sparkle in the eye of each of us as we set forth on our exploring expedition, all of a sunny Saturday. Outside of California there never were such Saturdays as those. We were perfectly sure for eight months in the year that it wouldn't rain a drop; and as for the other four months--well, perhaps it wouldn't. It is true that Longfellow had sung, even in those days: Unto each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary. Our days were not dark or dreary,--indeed, they could not possibly be in the two-thirds-of-the-year-dry season. It did not rain so very much even in the rainy season, when it had a perfect right to; therefore there was joy in the heart and no umbrella anywhere about when we prepared to set forth on our day of discovery.