an), steamed through the Golden Gate and anchored off
the Presidio I looked with great eagerness and curiosity on the
wonderful city known in those days as "the toughest hole on earth," of
which I had read and heard so much and which I had so longed to see. I
saw a city rising on terraces from the smooth waters of a glorious bay
whose wavelets were tempered by a sunshine that was as brilliant as it
was ineffective against the keen sea-breeze of winter. The fog that had
obscured our sight outside the Golden Gate was now gone--vanished like
the mist-wraiths of the long-ago philosophers, and the glorious city of
San Francisco was revealed to view.

I say "glorious," but the term must be understood to apply only to the
city's surroundings, which were in truth magnificent. She looked like
some imperial goddess, her forehead encircled by the faint band of mist
that still lingered caressingly to the mountain tops, her countenance
glistening with the dew on the green hill-slopes, her garments quaintly
fashioned for her by the civilization that had brought her into being,
her slippers the lustrous waters of the Bay itself. Later I came to know
that she, too, was a goddess of moods, and dangerous moods; a coquette
to some, a love to others, and to many a heartless vampire that sucked
from them their hard-wrung dust, scattered their gold to the four winds
of avarice that ever circled enticingly about the vortex of shallow joys
that the City harbored, and, after intoxicating them with her beauty and
her wine, flung them aside to make ready for the next comer. Too well
had San Francisco merited the title I give it in the opening lines of
this chapter. Some say that the earthquake and the fire came like
vitriol cast on the features of a beautiful woman for the prostitution
of her charms; but I, who lost little to her lures, am not one to judge.

My memories of San Francisco are at any rate a trifle hazy now, for it
is many, many years since I last saw the sun set over the Marin hills.
An era has passed since the glamour of the Coast of High Barbaree
claimed my youthful attention. But I remember a city as evil within as
it was lovely without, a city where were gathered the very dregs of
humanity from the four corners of the earth. What Port Said is now, San
Francisco was then, only worse. For every crime that is committed in the
dark alleys of the Suez port or the equally murky callejons of the
pestholes of Mexico, four were committed