ocean beyond, aye, even a steamer far out at sea, heading for the portal of the golden land. The bay of San Francisco is only partly visible, but we see on its bosom the dark form of Yerba Buena Island, and the steamers Washoe and Alameda plying to and from Oakland and the Encinal de Alameda, crowded with pleasure -seekers going over the bay for a Sunday's amusement, the shipping lying thickly around the wharves upon the city front. The rock fortress of Alcatraz, bristling with heavy guns, rising tier on tier from the water's edge, and surmounted with barracks and officers' quarters, painted of a peach bloom color, can be readily distinguished, and as a heavy bank of mist drifts in and covers it for a few minutes, we almost fancy that our ears catch the deep booming of the fog bell,
"The weary warden that o'er sea and marshes
Monotonously calls,
The challenge to the foe whose stealthy marches
Invest the city's walls."
A fog-bank, white as driven snow, drifts swiftly up the Marin county shore, slides over Lime Point, and fills the defiles of Tamalpais, whose summit, cut off from his base, apparently rocks and pitches in the surging billows like the wreck of some proud ship, tossed in the breakers on a stormy coast. The mist is gone again, and the Presidio of San Francisco, with its lone lines of barracks, and Fort Point, with its red brick fortress, stand out so plainly, that we look in momentary expectation of seeing the glinting of the muskets of the sentries in the sunlight, as they turn in their silent round and glance seaward for the foe
