286 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



interesting. The men work in a long shed. As a 

 man shears a sheep he throws the wool on a table and 

 calls his tally. Some, and many of the men, sing all 

 the while. At Santa Rosa in the old days there was 

 a fandango at night, and after the shearing a barbecue 

 and a hunt for foxes or wild hogs — at that time plenti- 

 ful, and dangerous to unmounted men. 



Santa Rosa is a delightful place to visit for an out- 

 ing, and a month could be passed in exploring its 

 varied points of interest. Like the rest of the islands, 

 Nicalque, as it was called, had a large and extensive 

 native population, and its great sand-dunes were 

 formerly strewn with implements of stone and shell, 

 while here and there skeletons were exposed by the 

 blowing wind. Here, up to 1542, was an American 

 Stone Age in all its purity. The natives had taken 

 all the utensils from bone, wood, stone, and clay — 

 stone clubs, stone arrow-heads, and spear-points; 

 beads, hooks, earrings, and a thousand and one articles 

 from the abalone shells, the meat of which afforded 

 them their chief sustenance. Great ollas of stone, 

 mortars, pestles, metates, grinding-stones, wheel-like 

 stones used in games, and scores of objects whose use 

 is only conjecture, hundreds of which have been gath- 

 ered to form collections in the great museums of the 

 world. 



Here are the same eagles found at the other islands, 

 and vast numbers of ravens, big and defiant, protest- 

 ing at the invasion of the gringoes, or any one else, 

 for that matter. 



The channel between Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz 

 is but five miles wide, hence the birds are the same, 

 or very similar to those of all the Channel Islands, the 



