San Francisco, in 1853, was much like a frontier town, devoid of either style or other evidences of permanent progress; yet it was wide-awake and lively in the extreme. What little had been built, bad and good, after the first rush of gold-seekers, had been destroyed in the five or six fires that swept the city just before I came, so that the best buildings I saw were of hasty and, for the most part, of frame construction. Tents also, of all sizes, shapes and colors, abounded. I was amazed, I remember, at the lack of civilization as I understood it, at the comparative absence of women, and at the spectacle of people riding around the streets on horseback like mad. All sorts of excitement seemed to fill the air; everywhere there was a noticeable lack of repose; and nothing perhaps better fits the scene I would describe than some lines from a popular song of that time entitled, _San Francisco in 1853_: City full of people, In a business flurry; Everybody's motto, Hurry! hurry! hurry! Every nook and corner Full to overflowing: Like a locomotive, Everybody going! One thing in particular struck me, and that was the unsettled state of the surface on which the new town was being built. I recall for example, the great quantity of sand that was continually being blown into the streets from sand-dunes uninterruptedly forming in the endless vacant lots, and how people, after a hard wind at night, would find small sand-heaps in front of their stores and residences; so that, in the absence of any municipal effort to keep the thoroughfares in order, the owners were repeatedly engaged in sweeping away the accumulation of sand, lest they might be overwhelmed. The streets were ungraded, although some were covered with planks for pavement, and presented altogether such an aspect of uncertainty that one might well believe General Sherman's testimony that, in winter time, he had seen mules fall, unable to rise, and had even witnessed one drown in a pool of mud! Sidewalks, properly speaking, there were none. Planks and boxes--some filled with produce not yet unpacked--were strung along in irregular lines, requiring the poise of an acrobat to walk upon, especially at night. As I waded through the sand-heaps or fell over the obstructions designed as pavements, my thoughts reverted, very naturally, to my brother who had preceded me to San Francisco two years before; but it was not until some years later that I learned that my distinguished fellow-countryman, Heinrich Schliemann, destined to wander farther to Greece and Asia Minor, and there to search for ancient Troy, had not only knocked about the sand-lots in the same manner in which I was doing, but, stirred by the discovery of gold and the admission of California to the Union, had even taken on American citizenship. Schliemann visited California in 1850 and became naturalized; nor did he ever, I believe, repudiate the act which makes