THE ISLE OF SUMMER 41 



making it a most interesting and picturesque region 

 to traverse by stage, boat, or in the saddle. 



The north or west end is fairly low, and marked, as 

 is San Clemente, with a rocky pillar. The north 

 slope is low, with canons here and there; but the south 

 or west face is grim and forbidding, with rocky preci- 

 pices, against which the sea breaks heavily in the 

 winter storms — I say winter, as storms in summer 

 are unknown in this Isle of Summer. In sailing down 

 the island one is impressed by the fact that there are 

 few, if any, shoals. The island rises abruptly from 

 blue water. In fact, a ship blown in against it almost 

 anywhere, except at the isthmus, would strike her 

 bowsprit on the cliffs before the keel grounded. Almost 

 everywhere blue water laves the very rocks, or the 

 deep-growing kelp beds which constitute a belt about 

 the island. 



Santa Catalina is a big peak rising abruptly from 

 deep water, the one-hundred-and-eighty-fathom curve 

 lying close inshore. Below land-locked Catalina Harbor, 

 on the southwest coast, there is Little Harbor, then 

 abrupt and precipitous cliffs, with here and there a 

 canon beach, such as Ben Johnson's, and Silver Canon 

 Beach, then a long line of colored cliffs which seem to 

 have been painted by the setting sun. Then comes 

 an isolated rock called "The Church" — with its 

 tower — but more like a lion couchant, or like a sphinx, 

 changing its appearance at every turn of the launch. 

 Around this, and we sight the east end, the Sea Lion 

 Rocks, a famous rookery of these animals, where they 

 are so tame that the glass-bottomed boats go within 

 a few yards of them, and the sea-lions have been photo- 

 graphed hundreds of times. Here the water is smooth 



