140 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



At last Chinetti laughed out. All night I heard the 

 cry of his foxes up the canon, and I could fancy, as 

 he said, they were laughing too. In the morning our 

 host took us up a canon, which we named after Chi- 

 netti (the raven), a crack in the lava worth going to 

 see, as a marvellous and weird freak of nature. I 

 believe at no point is it over eight or ten feet wide, 

 as far as we went, yet so deep that the sky above, 

 when we could see it, appeared like a blue river. It 

 wound about reaching upward, and everywhere its 

 walls were perforated with weird caves of large size, 

 drooping from which were masses of the snake cactus 

 {Cereus Emoryi), which fell dov/n in clusters like gigan- 

 tic green serpents. One could well imagine that some 

 Medusa lay sleeping in the cave, with sea-green hair 

 unfolding and writhing over the edge. So wholly 

 unnatural was this cave, that one could not shake off 

 the impression that it was a part of some weird scene 

 in a play. 



When we came out into the sunlight again Chinetti 

 was loading our saddles on the pack horses, and later 

 took them down to the landing, a lava-flow that 

 reached out into the sea. Mexican Joe, one of the 

 best surfmen in California, was lying off with the 

 launch, and came in, riding the surf with his skiff, to 

 take us off. For an interval of ten minutes the land- 

 ing was safe, and the men were rushed down, and with 

 flying leaps made for the boat. As I reached her I 

 saw a big roller coming in followed by others, and 

 when we boarded the launch our landing had disap- 

 peared from sight under a smoking mass of foam, the 

 big seas making a clear breach over it. 



From here we followed the island shore back to 



