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Rh flowers that bloom, a doubt arises in our mind, and we begin to inquire if there was in sober truth any such scene as we fancy we have been witnessing. Was that little oval-faced woman, clad in blue, purple, crimson and gold, shrinking in speechless fear from the strange throng around her, a being of flesh and blood after all, or a creature of the imagination? Did we actually see her come out of the great black steamer's cabin and stand there hesitating in the gangway, or have we been gazing at some brilliantly-tinted picture from the land where Marco Polo journeyed centuries ago, until one of the figures took on itself the semblance of life and action, and walked forth from its frame? Was it not in fact all a dream? A dream, we would almost swear! And yet a dream it could not have been, we find when we come to reflect upon it. There is the card of admission to the wharf, still lying on the table before us; that is tangible and real at least. The sunlight which the waters of the bay of San Francisco glistened under, and which flooded with its golden glory the mountains of Contra Costa and Alameda, looked and felt real. We can still hear the roar of many voices shouting in an unknown tongue, and see the stream of men in blue blouses, with shaven foreheads, and with long braided queues of glossy black hair and silk hanging down their backs. The strange odor of Asiatic tobacco, spices, opium—


 * "Mandragora,

And all the drowsy syrups of the world,"

which pervaded ship and cargo, still clings to our