acres, an overpowering sense of the grandeur and majesty of the great rival of San Francisco affected me. I felt my own extreme insignificance, and was fain to lean upon a pile of watermelons for support. Boy!" said I, addressing an intelligent specimen of humanity who formed an integral portion of the above-mentioned crowd, " Boy! can you direct me to the best hotel in this city?"-" Ain't but one," responded the youth," Winn keeps it; right up the hill thar." Decidedly, thought I, I will go in to Winn, and reshouldering my carpet-bag, I blundered down the ladder, upon a plank foot-path leading over an extensive morass in the direction indicated, not noticing, in my abstraction, that I had inadvertently retained within my grasp the melon upon which my hand had rested. "Saw yer!" resounded from the wharf as I retired-" Saw yer!" repeated several individuals upon the foot-path. For an instant my heart beat with violence at the idea of being seen accidentally appropriating so contemptible an affair as a watermelon; but hearing a man with a small white hat and large white mustache shout "Hello!" and immediately rush with frantic violence up the ladder, I comprehended that Sawyer was his proper name, and by no means alluded to me or my proceedings; so slipping the melon in my carpet-bag, I tranquilly resumed my journey. A short walk brought me to

the portal of the best and only hotel in the city, a large two-story building dignified by the title of the "Solano Hotel," where I was graciously received by mine host, who welcomed me to Benicia in the most winning manner. After slightly refreshing my inner man with a feeble stimulant, and undergoing an introduction to the oldest inhabitant, I calmly seated myself in the bar-room, and contemplated with intense interest the progress of a game of billiards between two enterprising citizens; but finding, after a lapse of two hours, that there was no earthly probability of its ever being concluded, I seized a candlestick and retired to my room. Here I discussed my melon with intense relish, and then seeking my couch, essayed to sleep. But, oh! the fleas! skipping, hopping, crawling, biting! "Won't someone establish an agency for the sale of D. L. Charles & Co.'s Fleabane, in Benicia?" I agonizingly shouted, and echo answered through the reverberating halls of the "Solano Hotel," "Yes, they won't!" What a night! But everything must have an end (circles and California gold excepted), and day at last broke over Benicia. Magnificent place! I gazed upon it from the attic window of the "Solano Hotel," with feelings too deep for utterance. The sun was rising in its majesty, gilding the red wood shingles of the U. S. Storehouses in the distance; seven deserted hulks

were riding majestically at anchor in the bay; clothes-lines, with their burdens, were flapping in the morning breeze; a man with a wheelbarrow was coming down the street!-Everything, in short, spoke of the life, activity, business, and bustle of a great city. But in the midst of the excitement of this scene, an odoriferous smell of beefsteak came, like a holy calm, across my olfactories, and hastily drawing in my cabeza, I descended to breakfast. This operation concluded, I took a stroll in company with the oldest inhabitant, from whom I obtained much valuable information (which I hasten to present), and who cheerfully volunteered to accompany me as a guide to the lions of the city. There are no less than fortytwo wooden houses, many of them two stories in height, in this great place and nearly twelve hundred inhabitants, men, women and children! There are six grocery, provision, drygoods, auction, commission, and where-you-can-get-almost-any-littlething-you-want stores, one hotel, one school-housewhich is also a brevet church-three billiard-tables, a post-office-from which I actually saw a man get a letter and a tenpin-alley, where I am told a man once rolled a whole game, paid $1.50 for it, and walked off chuckling. Then there is a "monte bank "

-a Common Council, and a Mayor, who, my guide informed me, was called "Carne," from a singular

habit he has of eating roast beef for dinner.-But there isn't a tree in all Benicia. "There was one," said the guide, "last year-only four miles from here, but they chopped it down for firewood for the 'post.' Alas! why didn't the woodman spare that tree?" The dwelling of one individual pleased me indescribably he had painted it a vivid green! Imaginative being. He had evidently tried to fancy it a tree, and in the enjoyment of this sweet illusion, had reclined beneath its grateful shade, secured from the rays

of the burning sun, and in the full enjoyment of rural felicity even among the crowded streets of this great metropolis. How pretty is the map of Benicia ! We went to see that, too. It's all laid off in squares and streets, for ever so far, and you can see the pegs stuck in the ground at every corner, only they are not exactly in a line, sometimes; and there is Aspinwall's wharf, where they are building a steamer of iron, that looks like a large pan, and Semple Slip, all divided on the map by lines and dots, into little lots of incredible value; but just now they are all under water, so no one can tell what they are actually worth. Oh! decidedly Benicia is a great place. "And how much, my dear sir," I modestly inquired of the gentlemanly recorder who displayed the map; "how much may this lot be worth?" and I pointed with my finger at lot No. 97, block 16,496-situated, as per