S36 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNL\ 



when I landed, in 1886. Men and boys were standing 

 on the beach catching yellowtails with cod hand-hnes. 

 As fast as they could cast they had strikes. The fish 

 ranged from twenty to thirty-five pounds in weight, 

 and every few moments there would be wailing and 

 gnashing of teeth as a yellowtail would break the 

 ropes they were fishing with. I watched this scene 

 until the fishermen became so involved in their lines 

 that the sport waned and the splendid school of fish 

 pulled out, some bearing from their jaws streaming 

 white lines and hooks innumerable. 



I returned to the mainland filled with the desire of 

 purchasing Santa Catalina, which at that time was a 

 sheep ranch owned by the Lick estate of San Francisco. 

 I believe the capitalists of the then new country imag- 

 ined that I was a mild lunatic from the wilds of New 

 York City, when I propounded to them the proposi- 

 tion that any island so near a prospective great city 

 like Los Angeles, where thirty-pound fishes like the 

 3^ellowtail could be caught so readily, was better than 

 a gold mine. Santa Catalina, a sheep ranch at that 

 time, could perhaps have been bought for fifty thou- 

 sand or one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and 

 there were fifty-five thousand acres. That was twenty- 

 four years ago; and the yellowtails and their friends, 

 with a soiipcon of perfect climate thrown in, have in 

 1910 made this island the gold mine I prophesied; for 

 I question if this one island could be bought at any 

 price. 



There was something more than guessing in this. 

 I knew that fishing had a charm for nearly all the 

 people. I knew hov/ the bluefish drew hundreds in 

 the East to the various fishing-grounds, and here was 



