1883 Published in The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson , 1895 .
The Pacific Coast of the United States, as you may see by the map, and still better in that admirable book, Two Years Before the Mast , by Dana, is one of the most exposed and shelterless on earth. The trade-wind blows fresh; the huge Pacific swell booms along degree after degree of an unbroken line of coast. South of the joint firth of the Columbia and Williamette there flows in no considerable river; south of Puget Sound there is no protected inlet of the ocean. Along the whole seaboard of California there are but two unexceptionable anchorages—the bight of the Bay of Monterey, and the inland sea that takes its name from San Francisco.