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on southward down the valley of San Andreas in the cool, quiet evening, we came to the Crystal Springs, one of the most beautiful of the summer resorts in the vicinity of San Francisco. There is a fine, large hotel, with a broad piazza all around it, just the place to sit and smoke a good cigar, have a quiet talk with your friends, and admire the beauty of the surrounding scenery, brought out in all its loveliness by the full autumn moon which was pouring down its full flood of mellow light upon the scene. The San Mateo Creek runs through a wild, tangled thicket in front of the house; parterres of flowers of every hue, in full bloom, fill the intervening grounds; and on the west the steep mountain sweeps around in a grand curve, forming a magnificent amphitheatre beside which the Coliseum is but the toy playhouse of a child. Away back in