their fatherland, including the long queue; almost all of them live in a separate quarter, and they are quiet and in.. dustrious, though charged with great immorality. I need not say that in this modern Babel one's ears are continually rent by strange sounds and cries belonging to all the languages and jargons of earth; while one's eyes become weary of this living panorama, in which appear in turn all the diverse shapes and the various colors of the poor human species.
But what consoles and reconciles one with all this uproar and these continual changes in sight, is the sweet thought that our holy religion has its share in the astonishing activity of this future great people. Judge of its progress besides a fair cathedral, just recently built by its venerable titular, who is an archbishop, there are five churches, four convents, a college directed by our Fathers and several schools for boys and girls. Pray often that God will bless these first consoling successes.
The markets were covered with the most beautiful fruit: grapes, melons, pears, etc., etc. In no place have I seen
any surpassing them in beauty, size and flavor. Grapes are so plentiful that two steamboats were employed daily in transporting them from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
In the matter of size California stands second among the American States. It is three times as large as Virginia and has a coastline Boo miles in length. The bay of San Francisco is one of the most beautiful in the universe.; it contains a great number of excellent harbors. Its position, opposite the Sandwich Islands, the Celestial Empire, Japan and the Philippine Islands; its almost daily connection with the long stretch of South American coast, with the Eastern States, and even with the greater portion of the great European ports; everything, in short, both without and within, seems to combine to make this land one of the most important commercially and one of the most thickly
populated in the world. There is no doubt that its commercial metropolis will soon be the New York of the West.