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A REVULSION AND ITS CAUSE.

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erected and immediately occupied. A season of prosperity had been experienced without a parallel. Men were not confined in their operations to their legitimate business, but would invest in anything that presented itself, and everything had been turned to advantage. But as soon as the rainy season cut off communication with the interior, a depression was felt, and soon an entire stagnation in all departments of business. This was not a time when the current of business could be safely checked; people had been borne to their present positions by one of the most buoyant seas; and should this pass from beneath them, the other extreme must as inevitably follow as the ebb follows the flood. This extreme was soon reached. Men found themselves with heavy stocks on hand that would not command onehalf their cost. City lots that had cost them thousands, would not now command as many hundreds. Many found it impossible to pay their enormous rents, even with their gross amount of sales. A crash was inevitable, and it came; and all were buried beneath the ruins of their own structures. The elements seemed destined to complete the devastation, and on the 10th of December the city was inundated, the deluge running riot through the streets, carrying houses from their foundations, and causing the inhabitants to flee to the shipping for safety.

Chapter Twenty-third.

SAIL FOR SAN

FRANCISCO-A FLEET-MUD-PROSPERITY-SHIPS AND STOREHOUSESBUOYANT SEAS-SHOALS IN BUSINESS-REVULSION AND FIRE-THEIR CONSEQUENCESSAIL FOR SANTA BARBARA-THE TOWN-DEXTEROUS FEAT BY A GRIZZLY BEAR-FASHIONS-SAIL FOR ST. LUCAS-PORPOISES AND SEA FOWLS, THEIR SPORTS-APPROACH THE TOWN-PECULIAR SKY-CAVERNS IN THE SEA-CACTUS-BEAUTIFUL SEA SHELLS-SAIL FOR ACAPULCO-MAGNIFICENT SCENERY-VOLCANOS AND CASCADES-VOLCANOS

NIGHT-ETERNAL SNOW.

AT

On the 22d November we procured tickets on the steamboat "Senator," at $30 each, and at 8 A.M., were under way for San Francisco. We passed along down at North River speed, arriving at 5 P.M. As we passed through the bay, we were struck with the vast amount of shipping, numbering no less than five hundred sail—a fleet which, in tonnage and number of sail, was never before equalled. (See Plate.) The city had also made gigantic strides. The sand-hills had been leveled, and the city had, as it were, in a day, taken the whole of the surrounding country under its wings. Here, however, as in Sacramento City, the streets were most bountifully supplied with mud, requiring, in some cases, most dexterous movements to keep above ground.

Nothing had occurred, up to this time, to check the tide of prosperity, which had borne the citizens on, to the very acme of their ambition. Every one in trade had realized fortunes, and were still bountifully supplied with goods, some having large invoices piled outside for want of room within. Still all were ambitious to add to their stock, and were hiring money at ten per cent. a month to invest in provisions, boots, and winter clothing, all of which were commanding exorbitant prices. Chilian flour, in two hundred pound sacks, was purchased by the quantity at $40 per sack, in anticipation of a scarcity; other provisions at prices predicated upon the above. Rents were extrava

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