x FAIR WOMEN AND BEAUTIFUL DUDES 255 



is the great amusement quarters of the swells of San 

 Francisco and Oakland, and this being just the 4th 

 July time, the anniversary of American liberty, it is 

 a national time of rejoicing. There is a very fine band 

 here, which amongst other music played " God Save 

 the Queen " yesterday (the 4th), to the evident satisfac- 

 tion of the audience ! There are any number of fair 

 women and beautiful ' dudes ' amongst the crowd, and 

 it would be endless delight to you to study them all. 

 Some of the costumes are simply ludicrous. There 

 appear, on the other hand, to be some very nice 

 people in the hotel, but they are all local, and out of 

 the 167! who arrived when we did, we are the only 

 English ; all the rest are from San Francisco, only one 

 from New York. To-morrow we go to Santa Cruz for 

 one night to see some magnificent trees of a kind we 

 have not yet seen, and return to San Francisco next 

 day, and the next leave homewards for Salt Lake City. 

 Dear old Douglas looks after me like a nurse ; he is 

 the best old boy in the world." 



"SAN FRANCISCO, Tuesday, %th July. 

 We arrived back here last night, having spent 

 Sunday night at a lovely seaside place, Santa Cruz. 

 It reminded me of the dear old days at Veules, 1 to 

 hear the sea beating on the shore close to the hotel at 

 night, and I thought that the next time I heard it 

 would be with you again 6000 miles away at Puys. 

 Next morning we hired a trap and drove through the 

 most heavenly forests to Big Tree Station, a little tiny 

 place in the middle of the densest and noblest forest of 

 a grand tree called Taxodium sempervirens, which we 

 had not yet seen. They do not come up to the 

 Wellingtonia in thickness, but are even higher. We 



1 Seaside place in Normandy. 



