United States

In essentials America is American, but when it comes to inessentials, to trimmings, her dependence on old England was noticeable again and again as I walked about New York. The fashion which, at the moment, the print shops were fostering was for our racing, hunting and coaching coloured prints of a century ago, while in the gallery of the distinguished little Grolier Club I found an exhibition of the work of Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway.

Calcutta and Bombay are strangely different - so different that they can only be contrasted. Bombay, first and foremost, has the sea, and I can think of nothing more lovely than the sunsets that one watches from the lawn of the Yacht Club or from the promenade on Warder Road. Calcutta has no sea - nothing but a very difficult tidal river. Calcutta, again, has no Malabar Hill. But then Bombay has no open space to compare with the Maidan; and for all its crowded bazaars it has no street so diversified and interesting as Harrison Road. It has no Chinatown.

My first experience of democracy-in-being followed swiftly upon boarding the steamboat for San Francisco, when "Show this man Number 231" was the American steward's command to a cabin boy. I had no objection to being called a man: far from it; but after years of being called a gentleman it was startling. This happened at Yokohama; and when, in the Customs House at San Francisco, a porter wheeling a truck broke through a queue of us waiting to obtain our quittances, with the careless warning, "Out of the way, fellers!" I knew that here was democracy indeed.

All visitors to New York speak of the exhilaration of its air, and I can but repeat their testimony. After the first few days the idea of going to bed became an absurdity.

  Sonoma creek 
  "Bear men." 
  Islands in the bay 
  Liberality of "Uncle Sam" to sailors 
  Sonoma 
  Beautiful country 
  General Vallejo 

  An appeal to the alcalde 
  Kanackas 
  Straits of San Pueblo and Pedro 
  Straits of Carquinez 
  Town of Francisca 
  Feather-beds furnished by nature 

  Return of Colonel Fremont to Monterey 
  Call for volunteers 
  Volunteer our services 
  Leave New Helvetia 
  Swimming the Sacramento 
  First fall of rain 

  Pleasant weather 
  Meet Indian volunteers 
  Tule boats 
  Engagement between a party of Americans and Californians 
  Death of Capt. Burroughs and Capt. Foster 
  Capture of Thomas O. Larkin