ime.

But before that hour, we were on our way back once more to San Jose,
where, the next day, we spent some hours renewing our former pleasant
experiences, even with greater zest. Our ladies, who went out for a
walk, came back laden with gifts of flowers from hospitable friends,
the acquaintances of the moment; and, as we started from San Jose for
Oakland, our car looked like a bower of roses, laden with perfume.

XVII

Oakland Ferry-house and Pier.--The Russian Church.--Off Eastward.--
Crossing the Mountains.--Hydraulic Mining.--Stop at Reno.--Nevada
Deserts.--Ogden.--The Playing Indian.

As we turned our backs on San Jose, we began to feel that we were
heading for home, and were descending from romance and flowers, to the
more commonplace conditions of existence. I question if it would be
good for us to lead too long, the ideal and refined Bohemian life, such
as a well-appointed car, and no care, affords.

It was with a sort of shock, that, after hours of travel, through
smiling plain and upland, we found ourselves in the prosaic environment
of Oakland.

Our car was run out to the end of a pier, which stretched for miles, it
seemed, into the bay. The vast expanse of water about us, the great
city away off across the bay, and the frail-looking, but yet perfectly
safe, piling on which our car had place, gave a tone of empty
loneliness to everything, and we could not but feel gloomy.

We were becoming fastidious. We wanted "roses, roses all the way," and
absolutely were oblivious to the energy which had created this huge
pier, crowned with the really splendid ferry-house, and a ferry-house
is no uninteresting thing. How little do we think that the whole ferry
business in the United States, especially in great centres such as New
York, presents the most distinctively American thing we have; the very
triumph of common sense and directness of means to the proposed end.

We availed ourselves of the splendid ferry here at Oakland, for a
little run once more in San Francisco. My errand was to try and hunt up
the Russo-Greek church, and see something of it. I got to the place,
and saw the exterior of what was once a magnificent residence, but now
a decayed mansion in an unfashionable part of the city. It was given an
ecclesiastical effect by being topped with several melon-shaped domes
of zinc, brightly painted; these, and the pale blue on walls and doors
and windows, gave quite the effect of Russia. My visit