578 ENVIRONS OF SAN FRANCISCO. Book IU. 
in the memory of those who had not been members of it ; 
those who had, were bound by oath to keep their secrets. 
The time of the second Committee had not yet arrived. 
Nevertheless, some strange things happened during my 
stay at San Francisco, but the more remarkable of them 
were related at the time in American and European news- 
papers, and to repeat them here would be superfluous and 
out of place. 
The environs of San Francisco are of a highly interest- 
ing character. The scarcity of trees, which is general 
over a large portion of the State, is more calculated to 
heighten than to diminish the grandeur of the scenery, 
which is altogether of that higher order to which supple- 
mental ornaments are not essential. The outlines, bor- 
rowed from the North Mexican style of landscape, are 
bold, and endowed with a remarkable degree of plastic 
harmony, on which luxuriant vegetation produces no 
change. The hills and mountains around the bay are 
overgrown with shrubs and herbs, grass, wild oats, and an 
extraordinary variety of splendid flowers. The shrubs, 
for the greater part, are evergreens, of the growth of the 
myrtle and the laurel ; and, as the winter is mild and moist, 
the hills and mountains around the city appear more fresh 
and green in that time of the year than during the summer, 
when the savanas and oat-fields are dry. 
The climate of California, in general one of the finest 
in the temperate zone, varies materially in different sec- 
tions of the country. San Francisco, in this respect, 
suffers from local inconveniences produced by the break in 
the coast range at the entrance of the bay. The fogs 
which, during the summer, pass over the city every 
afternoon with monotonous regularity, are cold and un- 
pleasant. They do not extend, however, beyond a few 
