The cinnabar is put into furnaces, and after three or four days' heating the vapours are allowed to pass through small openings into condensing chambers, on whose walls the mercury globules form, and glide at once into small troughs, which conduct them to a large iron cauldron. They are then transferred to iron flasks, and are ready for the market.

On our way home we obtained some good specimens of the mountain and valley quails. Both are beautiful birds, about the size of a partridge; but the former has a long feather on its head, and the under part of its body is very distinctly marked in coloured bars, whereas the valley quail has a little top-knot, and is not so plainly striped. Its throat, too, is black, with a little white border, therein differing from the mountain-quail, whose throat is reddish-brown, and only white at the sides. The horse-shoe can be almost as plainly distinguished on these birds as on the male partridge. Both species afford capital sport, and are stronger in their flight than any other bird; but they are uncommonly difficult to find without dogs. As soon as flushed they are off with a rapid, wild flight, but seldom travel far, and soon pitch again in the thickest neighbouring coverts.

I am told mountain-quails are getting rare, and are being rapidly thinned off by the wild cats, which abound in California. But as these and other destruc

tive animals have always existed, I do not see why the present scarcity of birds should be ascribed to them.

After a few days' sojourn in these 'lower regions,' our visit rendered none the less interesting and instructive by the Geyser Spring chicken-soup, and the appropriate sulphur and brimstone condiments with which our liberal host regaled us, we bade adieu to Pluto and Proserpine, and returned to San Francisco by Healdsburg and Petaluma.

This route was as picturesque as that which we took on our way to the Geysers, and possessed the advantage of only sixteen instead of seven-and-twenty miles' staging. The superb driving of Clarke Foss is missed on this road; but when the great whip' rests from his labours or has disappeared from the coach-box, I think the Healdsburg route will become the favourite one to the California Geysers.

A A

CHAPTER XXIV.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

Healdsburg-Porters - Jewellery-An art-Rainy season-CatarrhSan Diego-The abalona hunter-Shooting-Hotel mania-Americans abroad-The West.

WE remained for the night at Healdsburg, and a more unpleasant one I never passed. The hotel was full of travellers, apparently all going in different directions, from the different hours at which the porter roused the whole house in his efforts to awaken the right man. In the room next to mine there was a man of the name of Brown, and the porter thumped at his door at intervals of about half-an-hour all through the night, in spite of the reiterated assurances of the unfortunate lodger that he was not going anywhere. The porter, however, said he knew better than that, as he had been told to call Mr. Brown at 2 A.M., and call him he would. Eventually, at about five o'clock, he once more came round to Mr. Brown to ask him what his initials were, and then found out that they did not correspond with those of the Mr. Brown he was in search of.

Travellers owning names that are not very uncom

mon would do well at hotels to leave their initials outside the door with their boots, for though the latter are seldom attended to in America, the former always command respect.

During our short journey by rail on the following day we saw nothing remarkable, except the enormous gold watchchain worn by the conductor. The masculine mind in America has a strong weakness (if there can be such a thing) for jewellery.

Railway conductors and attendants are considered very unbusiness-like if, after their first month, they have not secured sufficient means to purchase a handsome watch and chain. The sight of a diamond becomes quite distressing after a few weeks in America; diamond studs worn in the daytime, diamond pins stuck into neckties of the sailor-knot type or into the shirt between the studs, are so constantly seen, that these stones are conspicuous only by their absence.

young man.

What kind of a chain would you like?' asks the jeweller. Well, I don't hardly know,' replies the 'What kind of a chain do you think I ought to have; that is, what style do you think would be the most becoming for a young man who carries groceries to the best families in town?'

Such and similar conversations are not unfrequently heard, and an idea of the all-pervading love of adornment may be gathered from it. Bar-keepers, invari

ably, are splendid in their decorations, and their trade offers good opportunities for displaying their jewelled fingers.

America may not equal Europe in the cultivation of the arts and sciences, but it can point with pride to the nimblebar-keeper' as he manipulates a smash, a julep, or a corpse reviver.' Such dexterity and sleightof-hand is seldom seen off the conjuror's stage; and it is no small accomplishment to be able to keep a sixfoot liquid arc oscillating in the air from tumbler to tumbler.

A few days after our return to San Francisco a change in the weather betokened the approach of the rainy season. An abnormally high barometer was observed to be advancing on the Pacific coast and travelling eastward-a pretty sure sign that the annual 'November wave' was at hand. It is strange that of the many storms that yearly arise in the Rocky Mountain regions and sweep to the Eastern coast, this annual November storm is the only one which has its origin on the Pacific slope.

Predictions were soon verified; the many months of dust being followed by some weeks of constant rain, accompanied by mist and fog.

Fogs in California are not equal to the celebrated London species, which idle boys are said to cut up into thick pieces and throw at one another; but they are