102 HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



Yet this was not owing to any lack of attention on the 

 part of the proprietor, to any inferiority in the quality 

 of his provisions, or to any deficiency of culinary skill 

 in their preparation ; but simply to the prevalence of 

 the pest to which I have already alluded as invading 

 my own tent, namely, the dust. The house was built 

 chiefly of wood, and had a canvas roof, but this was 

 insufficient to keep out the impalpable particles with 

 which the air was charged, and which settled upon 

 and insinuated themselves into every article in the 

 place. There was dust on the counter, on the shelves, 

 on the seats, on the decanters, and in them ; on the 

 tables, in the salt, on my beef-steak, and in my coffee. 

 There was dust on the polite landlord's cheeks, and in 

 his amiable wife's eyes, which she was wiping with the 

 corner of a dusty apron. I hurried my meal, and 

 was paying my score, when I caught sight of my own 

 face in a dusty-looking and dust-covered glass near 

 the bar, and saw that I too had become covered with 

 it, my entire person being literally encrusted with a 

 coat of powder, from which I experienced considerable 

 difficulty in cleansing myself. 



"Notwithstanding all I had seen of San Francisco, 

 there yet existed here a world apart, that I should 

 never have dreamed of, but for my being one day 

 called upon to act upon a jury appointed to sit in 

 inquest over a person who had died there. This place 

 was called the ' Happy Valley.' 



^ ' Previously to our repairing thither, we attended 

 at the court-house, to take the usual oath. Proceed- 

 ing then through the lower part of the town, we 

 reached the beach, along which, by the water-side, we 

 walked for a distance of three miles — up to our ancles 

 in mud and sand — until we came to a spot where there 



