Our stage was drawn by four horses, and, at one time, the snow accumulated around the foot of one of the leaders until it formed a huge ball, and with this impediment he was partially precipitated over the edge of a precipice.  This noble animal exhibited more presence of mind than would have characterized many human beings under similar circumstances, and, with great judgment, gradually extricated the foot from its snowy burden, and resumed his journey, but not before the face of every passenger was blanched with terror.

After a few days at Weaversville, we returned to Sacramento, feeling that we had enjoyed a pleasant and profitable trip.

CHAPTER XXX.

    “A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays,
    And confident to-morrows.”

We made a trip to San Francisco at a time when life seemed a continued carnival season, for there winter is the most delightful portion of the year.  We rented apartments in a delightful New England family, named Collins.  This, at that time, was the most comfortable way of living, for in no part of the United States did restaurants furnish such good and liberal fare at such reasonable rates.  The characteristic cheerfulness of California became intensified in San Francisco, where every face looked radiant and happy as if all who entered the Golden Gate found a City of the Sun.

We had so often asked the reason of this, and were as often told that “it was all owing to the climate.”  We finally concluded that the climate carried an unusual weight of responsibility; indeed, according to Joaquin Miller, among “the first families of the Sierras,” every unusual phenomenon of nature, whether it came in the form of a fascinating widow, a spooney man, a premature birth, or a fish with gold in its stomach, was all owing to “this glorious climate of Californy.”

Although San Francisco is pervaded by the business activity of a great commercial metropolis, it is not possessed of the spirit of excessive drudgery in the hot pursuit of the “almighty dollar” which prevails in many other places.  Every Saturday afternoon there is a lull in the labor routine, business being entirely suspended, and the fashionable promenades, Montgomery and Kearney Streets, are thronged with pleasure seekers; husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts, happy children, gay colors and brilliant equipages.

Among the beautiful resorts is that of the Woodward Gardens, with zoological and floral departments, parks, lakes, dancing halls and skating rink.  A friend kindly accompanied us to the Cliff House, a delightful resort upon the beach, about six miles from the city, and too well known to require description.

We remained in San Francisco about three months and a half, became every day more fascinated with its charms, and would fain have rested longer under the spell, but duty called us to many places on the coast, among them the floral Oakland, a perfect bijou garden and grove, and, like Alemeda, a beautiful, suburban home for the merchant princes of San Francisco.