Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/330

 310 a place where the timid seek refuge when entangled in the throng of vehicles. Market Street extends to the Oakland Ferry one way, and past the Mechanics' Institute and pleasure resort of Woodward's Garden to the distant Mission Hills in the other. Geary Street takes you, by a "cable road," westward to Lone Mountain, around which all the cemeteries are grouped, and Golden Gate Park, stretching to the ocean. On the top of Lone Mountain stands up to view from far and wide a dark cross, which weirdly recalls that of Calvary. Third Street, a thoroughfare of working-people, abounding in small restaurants, markets, and "tin-type" galleries, leads to the water at a different angle from Market. Finally, Kearney Street debouches also at the Lotta Fountain, and Montgomery terminates but a few steps below.

The Palace Hotel, vast, drab-colored, of iron and stuccoed brick, looms up nine stories in height on Market Street, and closes the vista from Montgomery. Studded with bay-windows, it has the air of a mammoth bird-cage. The San Franciscan, wherever met with, never fails to boast of it as the most stupendous thing of its kind in the world. With the conviction that size is not always the particular in which our hotels, like some of our communities, most need improvement, I should say that perfection had hardly yet been reached.

Within it is more satisfactory. At night an electric light strikes upon many tiers of columns, as white as paint can make them, in a large glass-roofed court, with an effect quite fairy-like and Parisian. Twice a week a band plays there, and the guests promenade up and down their galleries or look over the balustrade. In the bottom there are flowers, people sitting in chairs, and carriages stand in a circular, asphalt-paved driveway.

Though the resident of San Francisco feels called upon