San Francisco, open your Golden Gate, sang the girl in the theatre. She never finished her song. The date was 18th April, 1906. The earth shook and the roof suddenly divided, buildings crashed to the ground and people rushed out into the streets. The dreadful earthquake destroyed the city that had grown up when men discovered gold in the deserts of California. But today the streets of San Francisco stretch over more than forty steep hills, rising like huge cliffs above the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.
“旧金山,敞开你的金门吧!”剧院里的那位歌女演唱道。她没有唱完她的歌。这一天是1906年4月18日,大地震动,屋顶突然分裂,高楼大厦轰然坍倒,人们纷纷从屋里逃出,冲上街头。在加利福尼亚州沙漠里发现金矿后成长起来的这座城市,就这样被可怕的地震摧毁了。但时至今日,旧金山的街道四处延伸;遍布四十多座陡峭的小山,那些小山像悬崖峭壁般高耸于太平洋蓝色的海域之上。
The best way to see this splendid city, where Spanish people were the first to make their homes, is to take one of the old cable cars which run along the nine main avenues. Fares are cheap; they have not risen, I'm told, for almost a hundred years.
要游览这座西班牙人最早在此落户的灿烂的城市,最好的办法是乘坐穿越九条主要大街的旧式缆车。缆车取费低廉,据说近百年来一直没涨过价。