before it all of the houses on some entire blocks. Then the breeze suddenly shifted, and blew from the south, carrying the fire backwards to the north and east. In a few hours the whole business part of the city was one entire mass of flame! The wind that would have been considered high, though no fire had existed, was now raised to a hurricane by the action of the flames, that greedily sucked in the fresh air. The hollows beneath the planked streets were like great blow-pipes, that stirred the fire to fearful activity. Through such strange channels, too, which themselves became as dry and inflammable as tinder, the flames were communicated from street to street, and in an amazingly short time the whole surface, over a wide region, glowed, crackled, and blazed, one immense fiery field. The reflection from the sky of this terrific conflagration was said to have been visible at Monterey, nearly a hundred miles off! where it filled the superstitious and timid with dismay and irrepressible terror. On all sides in the doomed city there was heard the fierce roar, as of many storms, that drowned the shouts of men and the shrieks of women. The firemen plied their engines vigorously, and sent showers of water on the wild flames, that only served to increase their fury. As the solid stream of some lofty cataract is scattered into spray and thin mist long before it reaches the earth in the chasm beneath, so were the jets from the fire-engines dissipated into clouds of mere steam which never fell upon or could not extinguish the hot centre of the resistless element. Houses were blown up, but the fire leaped lightly across the gaps, and pursued its terrible course. It ran along the planked streets, and from block to block, almost as if they were but a train of gunpowder. The short space of ten hours, from the commencement of the fire, saw from fifteen hundred to two thousand houses completely ruined. In the end, the absolute want of further fuel to consume was the chief cause of the conflagration ceasing. Eighteen entire squares, with portions of five or six others, were devastated, and, with fewer than twenty exceptions, all the houses and property of every description were totally destroyed. Only five of the brick buildings on Montgomery street escaped destruction, and ten or twelve in other localities. The burned district extended about three-fourths of a mile from north

to south, and one-third of a mile from east to west. In this space was comprehended the most valuable part of the city, and where the most precious goods and merchandise were stored. All was destroyed! The damage was moderately estimated at from ten to twelve millions of dollars.

In this conflagration some of the old store-ships that had been hauled high upon the beach, and gradually closed in by the streets growing over the bay, were consumed. Of these was the old "Niantic." This vessel had long lain fixed at the corner of Clay and Sansome streets, where the hotel, which bears its name, was afterwards erected. The "Apollo" and "General Harrison" were also burned. Among the incidents of the fire, it may be mentioned that Dewitt & Harrison saved their warehouse by using vinegar in the absence of water, eighty thousand gallons of the former fluid having been employed by them in protecting the building. By breaking up the wharves, and so cutting off the connection with the burning masses, the immense amount of valuable shipping in the harbor was saved, which at one time was in the most imminent peril.

The bay was

San Francisco had never before suffered so severe a blow, and doubts were entertained by the ignorant that she could possibly recover from its effects. Such doubts were vain. still there, and the people were also there; the placers of the State were not yet exhausted, and its soil was as fertile and inviting as ever. The frightful calamity, no doubt, would retard the triumphant progress of the city-but only for a time. Sour, pseudo-religious folk on the shores of the Atlantic, might mutter of Sodom and Gomorrah, and prate the idlest nonsense, while envious speculators in cities of California itself, that would fain rival the glories of its grand port, might preach till doomsday of the continual strong winds that prevailed in the latter place, and which were certain, so they said, among thousands of wooden houses, to fan the veriest spark into a conflagration, again and again. The citizens of San Francisco were content only to curse and vow vengeance on the incendiaries that kindled the fire, and resolved to be better prepared in future to resist its spreading ravages. After the first short burst of sorrow, the ruined inhabitants, many of whom had been burned out time after time by the successive fires, began again, like the often persecuted spider with its new web, to create still another town and another fortune. While the city lay one vast black and still smoking tract, preparations were made to erect new buildings. These were generally at first formed of wood, low in height, limited in extent, and slightly constructed; but, before long, such rough, slim, temporary structures, began to give place to the present magnificent buildings that decorate our streets. But one other great fire was to come.

CHAPTER XVI.

1851.

T. Butler King removing tho custom-house deposits.-Frank Ball's song, and custom-house appointment.-Dr. Robinson's rhymes.-Incendiarism.-The case of Lewis, charged with arson.-The facilities with which criminals escaped from punishment.-The Vigilance Committee.-Contracts of Mr. Merrifield and the Mountain Lake Water Company to supply the city with water.

MAY 28th. The custom-house, at the corner of Montgomery and California streets, having been destroyed by the fire of the 4th instant, another building was speedily fitted up for the same purposes at the corner of Kearny and Washington streets. The treasure, amounting to upwards of a million of dollars, had been preserved in a large safe (which had escaped damage from the fire) in the old building. To-day the removal of this treasure to the new custom-house took place; and the manner of doing so created some little excitement and much laughter in the town, from the excessive care and military display which the collector thought fit to adopt on the occasion. Some thirty gigantic, thick-bearded fellows, who were armed with carbines, revolvers and sabres, surrounded the cars containing the specie, while the Honorable T. Butler King stood aloft on a pile of ruins with a huge "Colt" in one hand and a bludgeon in the other, marshalling his men and money "the way that they should go." The extraordinary procession proceeded slowly along Montgomery street to the new custom-house, Mr. King, marching, like a proud drummajor, at the head of his miniature grand army. The people, meanwhile, looked on with astonishment, and with some grief, that their city should be considered so lawless and wicked a place as to require so formidable a force even to guard millions of treasure in broad daylight, and along one or two of the principal streets, where there were continually present thousands of the

most respectable inhabitants. But immediately the farcical nature of the whole exhibition struck the most phlegmatic, and peals of laughter and cries of ironical applause accompanied the brave defenders of "Uncle Sam's" interests to the end of their perilous march. It was felt that there was but one thing wanted to make the show complete-half-a-dozen great guns from the presidio.

In the absence of other matters of local importance, this bloodless achievement formed the subject of a humorous song, composed by a young man of the town, and which he sang in one or more of the public saloons, on many occasions, "with much applause." The thing had a run, and served to fill the clever author's purse. He had a large number of copies lithographed, on which was a caricature print of the procession, and these he disposed of at a dollar apiece. In a single night he sold five hundred copies at this rate. As the tune to which the song was set was a popular and easy one, soon the town rang with the story of "The King's Campaign." But besides this effusion, there immediately appeared innumerable paragraphs, squibs, jests, good sayings in social circles and the public journals. It is one of the penalties which people must pay for their superiority in place over their neighbors that their actions are pretty severely criticised, and, when occasion serves, ridiculed. It was so here "with a will," and to Collector King's great mortification. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." But kings and collectors have potent remedies for the many evils that beset them. Frank Ball, the writer of the song in question, was shortly afterwards sent for by the collector, and favored with a private interview. Ordinary men might have "beat about the bush," or employed a friend in the little transaction which followed; but the Hon. T. Butler King, with the same dauntless face which he showed on occasion of the treasure removal, bluntly began conversation with the anxious poet, by asking whether he would not like to have a desirable post in the customs. Mr. Ball, gasping with surprise, mumbled, “Yes, surely!” 'Then, Sir, it is yours," said the collector, gravely. In gratitude Mr. Ball could do no less than stop singing his famous song, which was doubtless what his honorable and doughty chief ex

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