RETURN TO SAN FRANCISCO. 219 



posed to be under the especial care of a ' Saint 

 Somebody,' a lady whose image, attired in very 

 dirty finery, figures in niches cat in the rocks at 

 the mine. No miner ever leaves or enters the 

 mine without prostrating himself before this 

 dirty effigy. 



March 2th. Return to San Francisco by 

 road ; dine at San Mateo, as lovely a spot as I 

 ever gazed on. The grass is kneedeep, and the 

 clumps of buck-eye (Esculus flava) and handsome 

 oaks besprinkling the rounded hills and banks 

 of the clear stream winding its way past the 

 village to the Bay of San Francisco, like a lake 

 glistening in the distance, reminded me of a 

 park in fertile Devonshire. Completely shut in, 

 and sheltered from the wind that blows nearly 

 all the summer, withering up the vegetation ex- 

 posed to its influence, everything round about 

 this favoured spot grows in wild luxuriance. In 

 the garden belonging to the roadside house, the 

 summer flowers are in full bloom, and vege- 

 tables of all kinds in rare abundance, such as for 

 size and quality equal anything Covent Garden 

 Market can show. 



The bay runs inland about forty miles, and the 

 land on its shores is particularly fertile, and 

 employed in great measure for dairy-farms and 

 stock-ranches. 



