Englishmen seemed to adhere to the shooting-coat style of dress, and the down-east Yankees to their eternal black dress-coat, black pantaloons, and black satin waistcoat; while New Yorkers, Southerners, and Frenchmen, came out in the latest Paris fashions. Those who did not stick to their former style of dress, indulged in all the extravagant license of California costume, which was of every variety that caprice could suggest. No man could make his appearance sufficiently _bizarre_ to attract any attention. The prevailing fashion among the rag-tag and bobtail was a red or blue flannel shirt, wide-awake hats of every conceivable shape and color, and trousers stuffed into a big pair of boots. Pistols and knives were usually worn in the belt at the back, and to be without either was the exception to the rule. The few ladies who were already in San Francisco, very naturally avoided appearing in public; but numbers of female toilettes, of the most extravagantly rich and gorgeous materials, swept the muddy streets, and added not a little to the incongruous variety of the scene. To a cursory visitor, auction-sales and gambling would have appeared two of the principal features of the city. The gambling-saloons were very numerous, occupying the most prominent positions in the leading thoroughfares, and all of them presenting a more conspicuous appearance than the generality of houses around them. They were thronged day and night, and in each was a very good band of music, the performers being usually German or French. On entering a first-class gambling-room, one found a large well-proportioned saloon sixty or seventy feet long, brilliantly lighted up by several very fine chandeliers, the walls decorated with ornamental painting and gilding, and hung with large mirrors and showy pictures, while in an elevated projecting orchestra half-a-dozen Germans were playing operatic music. There were a dozen or more tables in the room, each with a compact crowd of eager betters around it, and the whole room was so filled with men that elbowing one’s way between the tables was a matter of difficulty. The atmosphere was quite hazy with the quantity of tobacco smoke, and was strongly impregnated with the fumes of brandy. If one happened to enter while the musicians were taking a rest, the quiet and stillness were remarkable. Nothing was heard but a slight hum of voices, and the constant clinking of money; for it was the fashion, while standing betting at a table, to have a lot of dollars in one’s hands, and to keep shuffling them backwards and forwards like so many cards.