2S0 SAN FRANCISCO.
being covered. Another week will put them out of sight.
"It is melancholy to see these old, well-known relics disappearing from our midst. How many a hopeful man has landed on those stairs, whose bones lie bleaching on the plains or in the ravines of the in- hospitable Sierra! How many a sanguine youth, the joy and hope of a loving family, has bounded up them, buoyant with hopes never destined to be realized! Great hearts have passed those steps ; honest hearts, big with determination to win a fortune in this golden land, not for themselves, but for those whom they loved better than life. Alas ! many such are broken with grief ere this.
"We well remember the scenes which used to be enacted on those steps in olden times, at the arrival of the monthly steamer. The crowd of emigrants gazing in astonishment at everything they saw ; the few females who did arrive shrinkinor in terror from the red-shirted men, bearded like pards, whom they saw around them ; the eager and heated boatmen, pushing, tugging, and swearing, in order to get first to the steps; the news-venders, with their dollar Heralds and Tribunes! Ah! those were fine old times, after all.
"But think of the treasure which has gone down those steps! The millions and millions of dollars, when the steamers were about to leave! Rough, plain, and unfurnished as they were, none have ever borne one half the treasure which has passed down them unnoticed. They have been the funnel through which all the gold of California has been poured upon the world.
"A fairer mornings never rose on earth. The clear blue sky hung above, and the pure atmosphere, through which the mountains twenty miles away could be traced to their every furrow, enveloped the city when she arrived, a girl of eighteen summers, as beautiful as the day itself, clad in her bridal robes.
