And no one then in the band of marines who stood
on the Plaza as the flag was unfurled to the breeze by the waters of
the Pacific, in sight of the great bay, could have dreamed of the
golden future which was awaiting California--of the splendour which
would rest on little Yerba Buena in the lapse of time. Yerba Buena was
the early name of the settlement. This was applied also, as we have
learned, to Goat Island. The pueblo was then insignificant and
apparently with no prospect of expansion or grandeur. There were only
a few houses there, chiefly of adobe construction, clustering about
the Plaza. The Presidio, west of the stray hamlet, and the Mission
Dolores, to the southwest, were all that relieved a dreary landscape
beyond. There were the hills covered with chaparral and the shifting
sands all around, and far to the south, where now are wide streets and
great blocks of buildings. The ground sloped towards the bay on the
east, and a cove, long since filled in, which bore the name of Yerba
Buena, extended up to Montgomery street. The population of the town
was less than a hundred; there was hardly this number in the Presidio,
and not more than two hundred people were connected with the Mission
Dolores.
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