ond building is occupied as a saloon, in which nobody seems to be stirring, and has a basement, over the door of which is painted the name of the establishment, as "The Roaring Gimlet," "The Bull's Run," "The Cock of the Walk," "Star of the Union," "Every Man is Welcome," etc., etc., but now closed and apparently unoccupied. There are strains of earsplitting music coming occasionally from the Chinese gambling-houses, and from time to time, as you walk along, you see rows of Chinamen seated at low benches in basements, industriously engaged in making up "every choice brand of Havana and Domestic cigars," as the signs over the doorways inform you. But for the most part, the dirty shops, saloons and basements have a thriftless, tumble-down, hopeless and half-deserted appearance, and you finally make up your mind that you have stumbled into a part of the town where nothing in particular is ever going on, and which is in a great measure deserted and going into gradual but certain decline and decay. Such is the "Barbary Coast" by daylight; but by gaslight or moonlight it is quite another thing, and you would find it difficult to realize that this was the sleepy, half-deserted locality you saw in the morning.
It is Saturday evening, in the middle of the rainy season, when no work is doing upon the ranches, and work in the placer mines is necessarily suspended, and the town fairly swarms with "honest miners" and unemployed farm-hands, who have come down from the mountains and "the cow counties" to spend their money, and waste their time and health in
