6 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



and less disagreeable features, than any country I 

 know or have heard of. 



I was standing at Avalon Bay once, when a singular 

 cloud appeared. A tourist remarked that we were 

 going to have a thunderstorm. "Oh, no," I replied, 

 "they never have anything of the kind here." Almost 

 immediately a bolt of lightning struck the building and 

 literally scattered the shingles at our feet. That was 

 the first thunderstorm I had known here in eighteen 

 years, and in twenty-four years in Southern California, 

 I doubt if I have seen more than four or five electric 

 storms where lightning struck nearer than five miles. 



The Spaniards discovered the islands, and in those 

 early days — 1542 — they were all inhabited. That 

 existence was easily maintained is evident to-day in 

 the extraordinary wealth of animal life. The waters 

 swarm with shell fish, tons of abalones (Haliotis), which 

 constituted the principal food of the aborigines, 

 being taken. Fishes of varied kinds are found every- 

 where, and the big game fishes, taken with rod and 

 reel, made the islands famous years ago, and they are 

 now the Mecca of sportsmen and anglers from all over 

 the world. The angling is so remarkable that it is 

 difficult to convince the stranger and layman that it 

 is not a joke; yet the evidence is found from Santa 

 Barbara to San Diego all alongshore. 



All the islands are bathed by the mysterious Black 

 Current of Japan — the Japanese Gulf Stream, the 

 Kuro Shiwo — which sweeps up that coast from the 

 south, crosses to Alaska, then flows down the Cahfor- 

 nian coast. It is incomprehensible to many that this 

 current does not produce the balmy climate of the 

 Channel Islands in winter, and the always cool and 



