Though there are some very large, fine buildings, the city is very ordinary on this score, there being also many little old shanties stuck here and there all through the place. The Palace Hotel is the finest building in the city, and is said to be the largest hotel in the world. It is built of beautiful polished stone, is seven stories high, contains seven hundred and twenty-five rooms, and takes up a whole square, fronting upon every side. In the center of the building there is a round space of about twenty yards in diameter running from the bottom to the top; and there are walks all around this from each story. Persons are let up and down here by elevators. There is a large, beautiful rockery all decorated with lovely flowers in the center of this space; and the clear, cool water from a pretty fountain is thrown high in the air and descends softly and refreshingly upon the tender roses and mossy rocks. There is a grand archway leading into this area from one of the streets, and carriages are driven through this and around the beautiful rockery where the air is fragrant with the sweet breath of the flowers. Guests are thus lifted into and out of their carriages always in the dry. The house is in all respects a _perfect_ structure, and is furnished with the finest and most costly furniture. The rates are from five to ten dollars per day; though good boarding can be had in the city for from four to six dollars per week. Here is where General Grant and party put up when they reached San Francisco in their trip round the world. The other principal houses are the Baldwin, Franklin, Central Pacific, and Hotel Rhein. There are great numbers of saloons, gambling-houses, and variety-shows, and whole gangs of the very lowest prostitutes in the city. A large proportion of the inhabitants are the rakings of many nations; and I feel very sure that there is not another city sitting upon the shores of the Pacific Ocean of more notorious lewdness and low vices than this place. We heard much about the Chinese, and had seen a few; but here were thousands of them, of every shape and size. The business-houses on each side of one of the streets for a half mile through the city are almost exclusively occupied by them. Their business ranges from the theater down to the poultry-pen. This street is called China Street.