t, but when the rains come
with refreshment in November the islands and all the surrounding
country are invested with a robe of emerald green, and flowers spring
up to gladden the eyes. Goat Island was so named because goats which
were brought in ships from southern ports to San Francisco, for fresh
meat, were turned loose here for pasturage for a time; and as these
creatures multiplied the island took their name. But it formerly bore
the more euphonious title, Yerba Buena, which means in Spanish
"Good Herbs." Later in my journeyings to and fro I overheard a lady
instructing another person as to the proper way in which to pronounce
it, and she made sad work of it. She gave the "B" the sound of the
letter G. It also had another name, as you may learn from an old
Spanish map of Miguel Costanso, where it is called--Ysla de Mal
Abrigo, which means that it afforded poor shelter. It is a government
possession, as also the other islands, Alcatraz and Angel. Alcatraz,
which Costanso styles, White Island, is smaller than Yerba Buena. In
its greatest elevation it is 135 feet above the Bay, and it embraces
in its surface about thirty-five acres, about the same area as the
Haram Esh-Sherif, or sacred enclosure of the Temple Hill in Jerusalem,
with the Mosque of Omar and the Mosque el-Aksa. On its top is a
lighthouse, which, on a clear night, sailors can see twelve miles
outside of the Golden Gate. Nature, with her wise forethought, seems
indeed to have formed this island opposite the Golden Gate, far
inside, in the Bay, as a sentinel to watch that pass into the Pacific,
and to guide the returning voyager after his perilous journeyings to
safe moorings in a land-locked haven. Farther to the north is Ysla de
los Angeles, Angel Island, with a varied landscape of hill and plain,
comprising some 800 acres of land.

Here are natural springs of water, and in the early days it was well
wooded with live-oak trees. To the eyes of Drake and other early
navigators and explorers it must have been a vision of beauty, lifting
itself out of the waters. Not many trees are seen here now, however,
but you may behold instead in harvest time fields of grain. It is
especially noted for its stone quarries, and out of these were taken
the materials for the fortifications of Alcatraz and Fort Point--as
well as the California bank building. It was my privilege at a later
day, in company with many of the members of the General Convention
to sail over the Ba