The earth seemed to have opened and swallowed them up, so sudden and complete was the dispersion. In one moment, where stood a mob of fifteen thousand, remained but two individuals. Above, with a sidelong bow and melancholy smile, slowly retired Sir Harcourt, and on the earth below, with open mouth and distended eyes, his admiring gaze fixed upon that extraordinary man with reverential awe, stood PHOENIX. SATURDAY MORNING. P. S. "Truthful James " has just rushed up in a frantic state to inform me that the Collector did not arrive last night after all. When I made my report, I did not know whether he had or not, but I am inclined now to think he might have done so. I don't know that it makes any difference. If he did arrive, my report is all true now-if he did not, why, when he does arrive, it will be all true then; and those who read it this morning, and find it false, will have the pleasure of reading it again, when it becomes the history of an actual occurrence. Of course you won't publish this. PHOENIX. PHENIX TAKES AN AFFECTIONATE LEAVE OF SAN FRANCISCO SAN DIEGO, Aug. 10, 1853. Ir was about 71⁄2 A.M., on the first day of this present month of August, that I awaked from a very pleasant dream in the great city of San Francisco to the very unpleasant conviction that it was a damp and disagreeable morning, and that my presence was particularly required in the small city of San Diego. So, having shaken hands with Frink, taken an af fectionate leave of the chambermaid, and, lastly, devoured a beefsteak at the Branch of Alden, which viand, in perfect keeping with the weather, was both cold and raw, I shouldered my cane, with a carpetbag suspended at each end," a la Chinois," and left the Tehama House without " one lingering hope or fond regret." When a man is going down, everybody lends him a kick, an aphorism which I came very near realizing in my own proper person, for as I went on my way down Long Wharf I accidentally grazed a mule, who, being in an evil frame of mind and harnessed to a dray, might be considered as passionately attached to that conveyance. This interesting animal, fancying from my appearance that I was "going down," "lent me a kick," which, had his legs been two inches longer, would have put a stop to my correspondence for ever. As it was I escaped, and hurried on down the wharf, thinking with a shudder on the mysterious prophecy of my friend little Miss B., who had told me I was sure to be kicked" before I left San Francisco, and wondering if she was really " among the prophets." The Northerner, like the steamboat runners, was lying at the end of the wharf, blowing off steam, and, as usual when a steamer is about to leave for Panama, a great crowd surrounded her. What made them all get up so early? Out of the three or four hundred people |