i6o 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



he had taken to store-keeping, while his wife kept poultry, 

 and as soon as they had made some more money they 

 meant to go another tour. They had been through Central 

 Europe and Italy, the Holy Land, India, China, Japan, 

 and the Sandwich Islands, and had brought home many 

 ornaments and fabrics from the East ; but what Mrs. 

 Freeman most valued were some bottles of water which 

 she had filled with her own hands from the River Jordan. 

 This water she had given to some of her dearest friends to 

 baptize their children with, a distinction of the highest 

 kind. 



While in San Francisco I had agreed to give a lecture on 

 Spiritualism," under the management of Mr. Albert Morton, 

 and I went over on Sunday, June 5, and had an audience 

 of over a thousand people in the Metropolitan Theatre. The 

 title of my lecture was, If a Man die, shall he live again ? " 

 The audience was most attentive, and it was not only a 

 better audience, but the net proceeds were more than for any 

 single scientific lecture I gave in America. I had spent the 

 morning in the fine Golden Gate Park, where I saw some 

 eucalyptus trees over sixty feet high, with numerous acacias 

 and other greenhouse plants growing out-of-doors. I also 

 had a fine view of the extensive sandhills, covered with huge 

 clumps of blue and yellow tree-lupines, which produced a 

 splendid effect. The interesting stances I had here will be 

 described later on. 



Returning to Stockton, I went with my brother and his 

 daughter for a few days in the Yosemite Valley. The 

 journey there — two hours by rail and two days by coach — 

 was very interesting, but often terribly dusty. The first day 

 we were driving for nine hours in the foothills, among old 

 mining camps with their ruined sheds and reservoirs and 

 great gravel heaps, now being gradually overgrown by young 

 pines and shrubs. Here and there we passed through bits of 

 forest with tall pines and shrubby undergrowth, but generally 

 the country was bare of fine trees, scraggy, burnt up, and the 

 roads insufferably dusty. At 9 p.m. we reached Priest's (two 



