322 Beyond the Sierras. 



lows it whole ; and you can see the globe majestically and slowly descending 

 the gullet. Doubtless the ostrich has a longer taste than that of any other 

 living creature, except the giraffe. He will swallow five or six such thiags 

 as oranges one after another, and you cnn see the protruding knots in his 

 long and twisted esophagus as they gradually work their way down stairs. 

 He could perform several curves of a minuet before the last disappears from 

 sight. 



What is an ostrich farm for? It is for the production of ostriches. And 

 what are the ostriches for? They are for the production of feathers, and the 

 feathers are for sale. Your vigorous, well-grown ostrich may be plucked 

 every six months, and the less thrifty birds every eight or nine months. 

 The yield of feathers from each is from one to one and a half pounds, and 

 the farmer receives for his product from forty to sixty dollars a pound. An 

 extra bird sometimes yields a hundred dollars' worth of feathers at a time. 

 When the plucking season arrives, the birds are harnessed up in a narrow 

 stall and carefully blindfolded, for fear the officiating clergyman may \ e 

 kicked through the fence. The ostrich becomes exceedingly angry with the 

 pulling of his feathers, and his kick is one of the most swift and dangerous 

 reactions ever excited among the muscles and tendons of animated nature. 

 When the bird is angry he lifts his wings, throws forward his head some- 

 what, ami utters a sort of hiss, which he bites off with a snap of his bill. 

 About this time look out for action. 



After our visit to the ostrich fiiriii we made our way down to the beach 

 and spent some hours on the shore of the Pacific. Here, for the first time 

 in my life, I had an opportunity to study and compare this majestic water 

 with the other seas and oceans. One might well suppose that an ocean is an 

 ocean without its characteristic features ; that one is as the other; but not 

 so. The ocean is glorious in its individuality as in its strength and grand- 

 eur. In the first place, the shore has an ever-varying condition. The Pa- 

 cific coast is totally dillerent from that of the Atlantic, in that it is almost 

 everywhere precipitous, broken oH" square down to the deep. Sometimes the 

 precipice is hundreds of feet in height. Sometimes the square wall, which 

 is the thus far of the surf, is long and low ; but rarely do we have the gentle, 

 .sloping, shingly beach peculiar to the Atlantic shores. If you stand upon 

 the precipice of the Pacific and look down to the surf you shall find almost 

 everywhere a quarter or a half mile of shingle, which is the debatable 

 ground, alternately covered and uncovered by the tide. At high tide the 

 ocean roars agaiu'^t the foot of the precipice, and no beach is seen; but 

 at low tide the surf line is out at a considerable distance, and thousands 

 of people may gather down there on the strand between the ocean wall and 

 the break of the sea. Such is the general aspect of all those parts of the 

 Pacific coast which I have visit^^d. The next fact is that of the greater 

 grandeur of the Pacific as to the visual expanse, the length and height of 

 the billows, and the majesty of the ocean symphony. I do not know how it 

 is that the Pacific can suggest its extent and almightiness to the beholder 



