and ladies who, having friends on board, have secured passes to go inside the gates, a crowd of custom-house officers, detectives in the employ of the company, the captain of the San Francisco police, with his entire watch, in grey uniforms, and armed with clubs and revolvers, and fifty to one hundred leading Chinese merchants, consignees of the cargo, or representatives of the "Six Companies," to whom all the Celestial emigrants or immigrants are consigned.
The "Great Republic," flying the flag of our country, that of the P. M. S. S. Co., and the yellow dragon of China, has meantime rounded Rincon Point, and is lying in the stream, off the southern end of the wharf, with hawsers out, vainly endeavoring, against the strong ebb tide, to warp into her berth on the western side. The bow hawser parts at last, and she drifts out towards Yerba Buena Island, then swings slowly round under steam, heads towards San Jose, and then, when about half a mile away, turns gracefully, and, with her monster wheels beating the bay into a foam, comes rushing at full speed directly down toward the wharf. The picket gates which separate the southern end of the shed from the section of open wharf beyond, are opened in an instant by the officers, and the people rush at their utmost speed down towards the northern gateway, apprehensive lest the leviathan, now approaching with the fleetness of a racehorse, should miss the point aimed at by a few feet, knock the pine-timber built wharf into kindling-wood, and send those upon it into Davy Jones' locker in an instant. Needless alarm! The monster of the deep
