As we stand on the deck of the bay steamer and are fast approaching the San Francisco ferry-house which looms up before us in dignity, we look out on a great city with a population of 350,000 souls, and we observe that it is seated on hills as well as on lowlands.  Rome loved her hills, Corinth had her Acropolis, and Athens, rising out of the Plain of Attica, was not content until she had crowned Mars’ Hill with altars and her Acropolis with her Parthenon.  Here in this golden city of the Pacific the houses are climbing the hills, nay they have climbed them already and they vie in stateliness with palaces and citadels in the old historic places which give picturesqueness to the coast lands of the Mediterranean.  There is indeed in the aspect of San Francisco, in her waters and her skies, and all her surroundings, that which recalls to my mind landscapes and scenery of Italy and Greece and old Syria.  Yonder to the northeast of the city is Telegraph Hill, 294 feet high, a spot which in the olden days, that is, as far back only as 1849, was wooded.  Now it is teeming with life, and it looks down with seeming satisfaction on miles and miles of streets and warehouses and dwellings of rich and poor.  But there are not many poor people in this Queen City.  In all my wanderings about the city for a month, I was never accosted by a professional beggar.  Everybody could find work to do, and all seemed prosperous and happy.  Off to the west, serving as a sentinel, is Russian Hill, 360 feet high.  It is a striking feature in the ever-expanding city, and it is a notable landmark for the San Franciscan.  In the southeastern part of the city is Rincon Hill, 120 feet in height, attracting to itself the interest of that part of the population whose homes are in its shadow.  There are other hills of lesser importance as to altitude, but over their tops extend long streets and broad avenues lined with the dwellings of a contented and thrifty people.  The business blocks and hotels, the printing houses and railway and steamship offices, the stores and art galleries, the places of amusement and lecture halls, the stores and shops, the homes and the churches, fill all the spaces between those hills in a compact manner and run around them and stretch beyond them, and at your feet, as you stand on an eminence, is a panorama of life which at once arrests your attention and enchains your mind.  It was all so different fifty or sixty years ago.  According to the census returns the population of San Francisco in 1850 was 34,000.  In 1860 there was a gain of 22,802.  In 1870 there were in the city 149,473 souls; while in 1880 there was a population of 233,959 including 30,000 Chinese.  The census of 1890 gives an increase of 64,038 during the decade, and the last enumeration shows that there has been a gain of 44,785 in the ten years.  If the towns across the bay and northward, as well as San Mateo on the south, which are as much a part of San Francisco as Brooklyn and Staten Island are of New York, there would be a population of more than 450,000.  The growth, as will be seen, is steady, and San Francisco offers to such as seek a home within her borders, all the refinements and comforts of life, all that ministers to the intellect and the spiritual side of our nature as well as our social tastes and desires.