Next to the Chinese, I found the sea-lions the most interesting feature of San Francisco. To reach them, however (if you do not wish to indulge the aboriginal hackman with an opportunity for extortion), you have to undergo a long drive in a series of omnibuses and cars, but the journey through the sand-waste outskirts of the city is thoroughly instructive, for the intervals of desert remind you of the original condition of the country on which much of San Francisco has been built, while the intervals of charming villa residences in oases of gardens, show what capital can do, even with only sea-sand to work upon. We call Ismailia a wonder--but what is Ismailia in comparison with San Francisco! After a while solid sand dunes supervene, beautiful, however, in places with masses of yellow lupins, purple rocket, and fine yellow-flowered thistles, and then the broad sea comes into sight, and so to the Cliff House. Just below the House, one of the most popular resorts of San Francisco, the "Seal Rocks" stand up out of the water, and it is certainly one of the most interesting glimpses of wild life that the whole world affords to see the herds of "sea-lions" clambering and sprawling about their towers of refuge. For Government has forbidden their being killed, so the huge creatures drag about their bulky slug-shaped bodies in confident security. It would not be very difficult I should think for an amateur to make a sea-lion. There is very little shape about them. But, nevertheless, it is such a treat as few can have enjoyed twice in their lives to see these mighty ones of the deep basking on the sunny rocks, and ponderously sporting in the water. And looking out to sea, beyond the sea-lions, I saw a spar standing up out of the water. It was the poor Escambia that had sunk there the day before, and there, on the beach to the left of the Cliff House, was the spot where the three survivors of the crew managed to make good their hold in spite of the pitiless surf, and to clamber up out of reach of the waves. And all through the night, with the lights of the Cliff House burning so near them, the men lay there exhausted with their struggle. It was a strange wreck altogether. When she left port, every one who saw her careening over said "she must go down;" every one who passed her said "she must go down;" the pilot left her, saying "she must go down;" the crew came round the captain, saying "she must go down." But the skipper held on his way awhile, and at last he too turned to his mate; "she must go down," he said. Then he tried to head her to port again, but a wave caught her broadside as she was clumsily answering the helm; and while the coastguard, who had been watching her through his glass, turned for a moment to telephone to the city that "she must go down,"--she did. When he put up the glasses to his eyes again, there was no Escambia in sight! She had gone down.