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Closing the passage by the
Golden Gate, a city of white houses, spires, and pinnacles rises from the water-line, and rolling backward over flat and sand rift, strikes a headland on the right, and surging up two hills, creams round their sides, and runs in foam towards yet more distant heights.
This city is
San Francisco, seen from the ferry-boat; a port and town with ships and steamers, wharves and docks, in which the flags of every nation under heaven, from
England to
China, flutter on the breeze; a town of banks, hotels, and magazines, of stock exchanges, mining companies, and agricultural shows; a town of learned professors, eminent physicians, able editors, and distinguished advocates; a town of gamblers, harlots, rowdies, thieves; a refuge for all tongues and peoples, from the
Saxon to the Dyak, from the
Tartar to the Celt.