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.

“舊金山，敞開你的金門吧!”劇院里的那位歌女演唱道。她沒有唱完她的歌。這一天是1906年4月18日，大地震動，屋頂突然分裂，高樓大廈轟然坍倒，人們紛紛從屋里逃出，沖上街頭。在加利福尼亞州沙漠里發現金礦后成長起來的這座城市，就這樣被可怕的地震摧毀了。但時至今日，舊金山的街道四處延伸；遍布四十多座陡峭的小山，那些小山像懸崖峭壁般高聳于太平洋藍色的海域之上。

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.

　　要游覽這座西班牙人最早在此落戶的燦爛的城市，最好的辦法是乘坐穿越九條主要大街的舊式纜車。纜車取費低廉，據說近百年來一直沒漲過價。

來源:可可英語 http://www.ccdyzl.cn/read/201011/118418.shtml