From the reports of remarkable men and prominent citizens shooting each other in the public streets, of bandits raiding the suburbs, of fires and floods, that accompany this announcement, we should imagine that domestic retirement in San Francisco was at that time subject to frequent and unpleasant interruption. On this account, perhaps, Mr. and Mrs. Hull spent much of their time hunting in the valley of the Sacramento. Lola was in search of new sensations, and for the moment the bear seemed a more attractive quarry than the man. But before long a German medical man, named Adler, himself a mighty hunter, came across her path. His prowess excited her admiration, and he at once fell a victim to the shafts from her quiver. Hull was discarded and the German reigned in his stead. In these American _amours_ we seem to detect the last flickerings of the flame of passion--the woman's last strenuous efforts to find a real and lasting interest in life. But Lola had played too much with love. That mighty force which she had so often exploited and exerted to the furtherance of her ambitions was no longer at her command. Her capacity for love was exhausted; by passion she was no more to rule or to be ruled. She had hardly time to tire of her German lover, who accidentally shot himself while following the chase--no bad death for a hunter. It might have been expected that Lola would now quit California and return to more congruous surroundings. But a distaste for men and cities, for the restraints of civilisation, had grown strong within her. Just then she was sick of love and sick of the world. At her best, a splendid animal, with fierce elemental passions, she turned almost instinctively, to draw fresh supplies of vitality from "the green, sweet-hearted earth." She made herself a home in a cabin at Grass Valley, a lawless mining camp, among the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada. All her life she had loved animals, and these she now made her special friends and companions, finding in their marvellous stores of affection and devotion ample compensation for the muddy evanescent emotion that men call love. She did not, of course, lead the life of a hermit. We catch glimpses of her in a despatch from Nevada City, dated 20th January 1854:-- "The merry ringing of sleigh bells has been heard for several days past in our city. Several sleighs have been fitted up, and the young gentlemen have treated the ladies to some dashing turn-outs. On Tuesday last, Lola Montez paid us a visit by this conveyance and a span of horses, decorated with impromptu cowbells. She flashed like a meteor through the snowflakes and wanton snowballs, and after a tour of the thoroughfares, disappeared in the direction of Grass Valley." There she continued to dwell during the rest of that year, her liking for the simple life unabated. A correspondent of the _San Francisco Herald_, who visited her on 13th December, describes her as--