“Lots of strangers in San Francisco for the Fair,” he remarked, as from the car window he watched the big turban of a Hindoo bobbing among the crowd on the sidewalk; then his eyes wandered to a Japanese arrayed in a new suit of American clothes and finally rested on a bright yellow lei wound about the hat of a swarthy Hawaiian.  I smiled as I nodded to the Japanese who had worked in my kitchen for three years, and recognized in the dusky Hawaiian one of the regular singers in a popular cafe.

The train had now left commercial San Francisco behind and was climbing the hills to where the nature loving citizens had perched their houses in order to obtain a better view of the bay.  We abandoned the car and following an upward path, finally stood on the lower shoulder of Twin Peaks.  Tired from our exertions we sank upon the soft grass.  The hills had put on their festival attire, catching up their emerald gowns with bunches of golden poppies and veiling their shoulders in filmy scarfs of blue lupins.  The air was filled with Spring and the delicate blush of an apple-tree told of the approach of Summer.  Below, the city, noisy and bustling a few moments ago, now lay hushed to quiet by the distance and beyond, the sun-flecked waters of the bay stretched to a girdle of verdant hills, up whose sides the houses of the towns were scrambling.  To the left, resting on the top of Mt.  Tamalpais, could be seen the “sleeping maiden” who for centuries had awaited the awakening kiss of her Indian lover.

“What a glorious play-ground for San Francisco.”  His voice rang with enthusiasm.  “Look at the ferryboats plowing up the bay in every direction.  A man could escape from the factory grime on the water front and in an hour be asleep under a tree on a grassy hillside.”

“It is a splendid country to tramp through, but if a man wants to sleep, why not spend less time and money by selecting a nearer place?  There are plenty of trees and grassy mounds in the Presidio and Golden Gate Park.”

His eyes followed mine to the green patch edging the entrance to the bay and then ran along the tree-lined avenue to the parked section extending almost from the center of the city to the Pacific Ocean.  Suddenly he stood up and took his field glasses from his pocket.

“There’s a granite cross just visible above the trees in Golden Gate Park.”  He focused his glasses for a better view.  “It’s quite elaborate in design and seems to be raised on a hill.”

He offered me the glasses but I did not need them.  “It’s the Prayer-Book Cross and commemorates the first Church of England service held on this Coast by Sir Francis Drake in 1579.  I think it is a shame that we haven’t also a monument for Cabrillo, the real discoverer, who was here nearly forty years earlier.  If Sir Francis hadn’t stolen a Spanish ship’s chart, he would never have found the Gulf of the Farallones.  Cabrillo sailed along the coast more than half a century before Massachusetts Bay was discovered,” I added maliciously.