It seemed to cause very little interruption to the usual order of things in hotels, theaters, and other public places; there was a good deal of anxiety as to the security of the levee, in which was the only safety of the city; but in the meantime the ordinary course of pleasure and business was unchanged, except in the substitution of boats for wheeled vehicles; and the great source of consolation and congratulation to the sufferers from the flood, and to the population generally, was in endeavoring to compute how many millions of rats would be drowned. On arriving in San Francisco the change was very great--it was like entering a totally different country. In place of cold and rain and snow, flooded towns, and no dry land, or snowed-up towns in the mountains with no food, here was a clear bright sky, and a warm sun shining down upon a city where everything looked bright and gay. It was nearly a year since I had left San Francisco, and in the meantime the greater part of it had been burned down and rebuilt. The appearance of most of the principal streets was completely altered; large brick stores had taken the place of wooden buildings; and so rapidly had the city extended itself into the bay that the principal business was now conducted on wide streets of solid brick and stone warehouses, where a year before had been fifteen or twenty feet of water. All, excepting the more unfrequented streets, were planked, and had good stone or plank side-walks, so that there was but little mud notwithstanding the heavy rains which had fallen. In the upper part of the town, however, where the streets were still in their original condition, the amount of mud was quite inconceivable. Some places were almost impassable, and carts might be seen almost submerged, which half-a-dozen horses were vainly trying to extricate. The climate of San Francisco has the peculiarity of being milder in winter than in summer. Winter is by far the most pleasant season of the year. It is certainly the rainy season, but it only rains occasionally, and when it does it is not cold. The ordinary winter weather is soft, mild, subdued sunshine, not unlike the Indian summer of North America. The San Francisco summer, however, is the most disagreeable and trying season one can be subjected to. In the morning and forenoon it is generally beautifully bright and warm: one feels inclined to dress as one would in the tropics; but this cannot be done with safety, for one has to be prepared for the sudden change in temperature which occurs nearly every day towards the afternoon, when there blows in off the sea a cold biting wind, chilling the very marrow in one’s bones. The cold is doubly felt after the heat of the fore part of the day, and to some constitutions such extreme variations of temperature within the twenty-four hours are no doubt very injurious, especially as the wind not unfrequently brings a damp fog along with it.