Chap. IX. DEPARTURE FOR SAN FRANCISCO. 569 
repute. Los Angeles, in this respect, was far below San 
Francisco, where — through almost a year— I have passed 
the streets at any hour of the night without ever meeting 
with an accident or witnessing any suspicious proceedings. 
But it has just been the good police of the capital, the sum- 
mary executions of Lynch law in the mines, and in general 
the greater civil order in the northern section of the State, 
by which the most dangerous elements of the Californian 
population were driven south, especially to Los Angeles — 
the place of exit from the State in the direction of the wild 
and adventurous regions of the Colorado, the Gila, the 
State of Sonora and the Rio Grande. 
On the 30th of September I left Los Angeles for San 
Francisco. 
San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, is but an open 
roadstead, and at the time of my embarkation on board of 
one of the Californian coasting steamers, only one building 
existed here, containing the offices and store-rooms of the 
principal forwarding and commission house of Los Angeles, 
together with some accommodation for travellers. 
The dense fogs, which during a great portion of the 
year are prevailing on the coast of California, deprived 
me of the opportunity of seeing the maritime scenery, 
which is said to be very interesting, the greater part of the 
coast being of a bold and varied character. The atmo- 
sphere, however, was clear when we came to Monterey. 
Here the coast is covered with a forest of pine-trees 
reaching down to the rocky beach. At some places it is 
interrupted by tracts of moveable sand, and we passed a 
line of cliffs covered with different species of seals. The 
rocks on the coast at Monterey are granite, quite alive, 
where they are under water, with flower-shaped mollusca 
fixed on them. Delicate sea-weeds of exquisite beauty of 
