s and music. Apparently, San
Francisco didn't sleep.
All in all, it wasn't a very good night for sleeping, anywhere. Some
of the passengers on the decks talked the whole night through, it
seemed to Charley, discussing plans. At daylight began a general stir,
to prepare to go ashore, the Adams party were ready about as soon as
anybody, waiting for the boats to start their trips. Luggage was piled
high, everywhere aboard; and by sunrise people were impatient.
It happened to be a beautiful morning, with wisps of fog drifting out
to sea. How large the bay was, extending north and south and three
miles wide! Porpoises were numerous, rolling their backs through the
tumbling gray surface; gulls sailed and circled and screamed; and there
was a hoarse, grunty barking which Mr. Grigsby said was from sea-lions,
on the rocks of the shore.
Now San Francisco lay revealed, sprawled from the wharves of the
water's edge, on back up the sides of the bare rounded hills behind.
"Who would have thought, when I came out here with Fremont," murmured
Mr. Grigsby, as they three gazed again at the town, "that the old hide
landing of Yerba Buena would have jumped to this. My idea for a city
would be the other side of the bay, on the mainland. But here was the
starter, boats were used to it, and nothing can stop the place now."
"It's not very pretty, that's sure," commented Mr. Adams.
And indeed, evidently built of anything that came to hand, with its
houses squatted in haphazard, hasty fashion, and the country around
bare and brown and bleak, San Francisco did not look attractive. But
the bay was grand; and the hundreds of ships flying the flags of the
United States, and England, and France and Spain and Mexico and Germany
and Denmark and Sweden, were interesting beyond words. There were
several United States men-of-war. One, the line-of-battle-ship _Ohio_,
lay not far away from the _California_. How tremendous she looked,
with her yards all aslant, and the round, black muzzles of her cannon
staring out through her open ports! Nothing could lick _her_, decided
Charley, proudly.
A bustling fleet of rowboats put out to the _California_, yelping for
the business of taking passengers and baggage ashore. The ship's boats
also began work early; and now, at last, Charley found himself embarked
in a skiff and making for the shore. He did not see any of the Jacobs
party, on the decks or in the other boats. As like as not, the
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