William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

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Chapter 16: San Francisco.

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.