. After earthquake and fire . conflagration traversed the busi-ness portion of the city and seized with greedy tongues oiflame upon the handsome residential and the other thicklypopulated districts. Governed only by the wind, it reachedVan Ness avenue late on Thursday and followed north fromMarket street along the east side of Van Ness. Crossing thisbeautiful avenue, it wiped out a block on the west side andthen, reluctant to give up its prey, turned northeast to meetthe dther fire which had previously devastated Nob, Telegraphand Russian hills in its path northwestward toward theGolden Gate.
. After earthquake and fire . conflagration traversed the busi-ness portion of the city and seized with greedy tongues oiflame upon the handsome residential and the other thicklypopulated districts. Governed only by the wind, it reachedVan Ness avenue late on Thursday and followed north fromMarket street along the east side of Van Ness. Crossing thisbeautiful avenue, it wiped out a block on the west side andthen, reluctant to give up its prey, turned northeast to meetthe dther fire which had previously devastated Nob, Telegraphand Russian hills in its path northwestward toward theGolden Gate. Thus the entire area bounded by Market, VanNess and the bay is laid waste; on the south side of the mainartery—Market street—the devastated ground is roughlybounded by Dolores street on the west and by an irregularline following from about the corner of Dolores and Twentiethstreets, down Twentieth to Kansas, and thence across toTwenty-fifth street and easterly by that street to the bay, andon the north by the water 48 AFTER EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE. The streets of Chinatown, which we passed through, werethronged by fully 3,000 Mongolians of all castes and of the older men and women looked more like leprousanimals than human beings, and many had probably not beenout of their over-crowded dens for years. Their squalid effects,piled in every conceivable shape, impeded progress throughthe narrow streets, and passing through their district towarddusk we hastened our steps ferryward, traversing that dis-reputable locality known as the Barbary Coast. Here beastsin human shape in every stage of drunkenness, and deliriousfrom stolen liquor taken from the wrecked saloons, shoutedor sang in a perfect pandemonium. Within a few blocks theroar of the flames, the noises of constantly falling walls, andthe dynamiting supplied a sufficiently hellish accompanimentto that orgy. Refugees from the densly populated Mission district fledalong the Mission road toward San Mateo, and th
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidafterearthqu, bookyear1906
