We were fortunate in finding the directions Captain Frankland expected to guide his future course, and I got letters from home.  How greedily I devoured them!  Every word I read over and over again, and I kissed them more than once, when I knew Jerry was not looking at me.  I do not give a longer account of the place, because I was engaged most of the time I was there in writing home.  I judged from the delight I felt in getting letters, that mine would afford a somewhat similar pleasure; so I found they did, and I advise those of my readers who have to go away from home to remember this, and never to lose an opportunity of writing.  We were bound for San Francisco, the giant mushroom city of the wondrous gold-bearing regions of California.  I had always fancied that the Pacific was, as its name betokens, a wide expanse of island-sprinkled water, seldom or never ruffled by a storm.  At length I had practical proof of my mistake.  We had made a good offing from the coast, to give a wide berth to that narrow strip of land which runs from north to south, and is known as Lower California.  I saw the captain looking constantly at the barometer; Jerry and I looked also, for we guessed that something was the matter.  The quicksilver sank lower and lower in the tube, showing that the superincumbent atmosphere had become lighter, or more rarified, and that a current of air would soon come in from some direction or other and fill it up.