[Illustration: DEPARTURE FROM SAN FRANCISCO.]
The captain gave the order to cast off the lines. Hardly had the echo of his words ceased before the lines had fallen. Then he rang the signal to the engineer, and the great screw began to revolve beneath the stern of the ship. Promptly at the advertised time the huge craft was under way. The crowd on the dock cheered as she moved slowly on, and they cheered again as she gathered speed and ploughed the water into a track of foam. The cheers grew fainter and fainter; faces and forms were no longer to be distinguished; the waving of hats and kerchiefs ceased; the long dock became a speck of black against the hilly shore, and the great city faded from sight.
Overhead was the immense blue dome of the sky; beneath and around were the waters of San Francisco Bay. On the right was Monte Diablo, like an advanced sentinel of the Sierras; and on the left were the sand-hills of the peninsula, covered with the walls and roofs of the great city of the Pacific Coast. The steamer moved on and on through the Golden Gate; and in less than an hour from the time of leaving the dock, she dropped her pilot, the gangway passage was closed, and her prow pointed to the westward for a voyage of five thousand miles.
"What a lovely picture!" said the Doctor, as he waved his hand towards the receding shore.
"Why do they call that the Golden Gate?" Fred asked.
"Because," was the reply, "it is, or was, the entrance to the land of gold. It was so named after the discovery of gold in California, and until he completion of the Overland railway it was the principal pathway to the country where everybody expected to make a fortune."
"It is very wide, and easy of navigation," the Doctor continued, "and yet a stranger might not be aware of its existence, and might sail by it if he did not know where to look for the harbor. A ship must get well in towards the land before the Golden Gate is visible."
"How long shall we be on the voyage, Doctor?"
"If nothing happens," he answered, "we shall see the coast of Japan in about twenty days. We have five thousand miles to go, and I understand the steamer will make two hundred and fifty miles a day in good weather."
"There is not a stopping-place on the whole route. We are not yet out of sight of the Golden Gate, and already we are steering for Cape King, at the entrance of Yeddo Bay. There's not even an island, or a solitary rock on our course."