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Show 270 PERSONAL ADVENTURES charged, and 'vhich settled upon and insinuated then1selves into every article in the place. There was dust on the counter, on the shelves, on the seats, on the decanters, and in them; on the tables, in the salt, on my beef-steak, and in my coffee. There was dust on the polite landlord's cheeks, .and in his amiable wife's eyes, which she was wiping with the corner of a dusty apron. I hurried my meal, and was paying my score, when I caught sight of my own face in a dusty-looking and dust-covered glass near the bar, and saw that I too had become covered with it, my entire person being literally encrusted with a coat of powder, from which I experienced considerable difficulty in cleansing myself. Notwithstanding aU I had seen of San Francisco, there yet existed here a world apart, that I should never have dreamed of, but for my being one day called upon to act upon a jury appointed to sit in inquest over a person who had died there. This place was called the " Happy Valley." Previously to our repairing thither, we at· IN CALIFORNIA. 271 tended at the court-house, to take the usual oath. Proceeding then through the lower part of the town, we reached the beach, along which, by the water-side, we walked for a distance of three miles-up to our ancles in mud and sand-until we came to a spot where there were innumerable tents pitched, of all sizes, forms, and descriptions, forming an irregular line stretching along the shore for about two miles. The ground was, of course, low, damp, and muddy; and the most unmistakeable evidences of discomfort, misery, and sickness, met our view on every side, for the locality was one of the uuwholeson1est in the vicinity of the tovvn. Yet here, to avoid the payment of enormous ground-rents, and at the same time to combine the advantage of cheap living, 'vere encamped the major portion of the most recently arrived emigrants, 'and, amongst the rest, those of the ship Brooklyn, on one of the passengers of which the inquest was about to be held. We experienced ·considerable difficulty in finding the tent; but at last discovered |