ights, and numerous Chinese club
houses where the celestials, by cooperation, evade certain prohibitory
enactments, and in the privacy of their associations, enjoy all their
celestial delights.

We also visited a manufacturing jeweller's shop where a lot of
goldsmiths were at work. The whole place had on it the mark of utter
simplicity. The instruments of the craft were primitive, almost rude,
in appearance. Each man was seated before his portion of the work
bench, or at a small table, in the narrowest possible space. An open
dish containing some nut oil, and a bunch of vegetable fibre for wick,
aflame at one end in a tiny light, this, a blowpipe, a few little
files, and some lumps of wax was all; but behind this was a patient
yellow man, capable of quick motion, but never of ignoble hurry, to
whom the present moment was an eternity of time and opportunity, of
which he felt that himself, and all his work, were essential parts.
But, to our infinite amusement, behind all this was a busy little
Chinese woman, who flitted from man to man and bench to bench,
criticising, blaming, encouraging, and urging on everybody, with a
tongue that never ceased, and eyes and motions as alert and rapid as a
humming-bird. Her bright little eyes, her unceasing movement, her
evident control of all, was absolutely exhilarating. Woman rules
everywhere, or could, if she only would.

I must not omit the mention of a glorious trip out across the harbor,
to a watering place full of villa residences, nestled at the water's
edge, close under the towering mountains which encompass the whole
great expanse. The coloring of the place, the forms of the mountains,
and the tints upon the water, all suggest the Mediterranean and other
foreign shores.

In the fragments of the days left us in San Francisco, most agreeable
hours were spent in stores where Chinese and Japanese goods, in great
profusion and splendid taste, were freely open to our view.

An agreeable treat was also given me in a visit to the Bohemian Club,
where, through an introduction from a New York friend, I met some
delightful and hospitable men. In the club were some capital pictures
produced by California artists; among them, a great small painting of
the redwoods seen at night, with a camp-fire in the foreground, most
Rembrandt-like in effect. Another was full of sunshine and life. It was
a group of boys undressing in the blue shade between two yellow sand
dunes by the sea; while out