The Pacific did not belie its name.
More than half the way to San Francisco we steamed as calmly and with as little motion as upon a narrow lake.

Sometimes there was no sensation to indicate we were moving at all.
[Illustration: SLIGHTLY MONOTONOUS.] Even varied by glimpses of the Mexican coast, the occasional appearance of a whale with its column of water thrown high into the air, and the sportive action of schools of porpoises which is constantly met with, the passage was slightly monotonous.

On the twenty-third day from New York we ended the voyage at San Francisco.
On arriving in California I was surprised at the number of old acquaintances I encountered.

When leaving New York I could think of only two or three persons I knew in San Francisco, but I met at least a dozen before being on shore twelve hours.

Through these individuals, I became known to many others, by a rapidity of introduction almost bewildering.