AIR-BREATHERS 129 
the ocean pours over the tree tops and then rushes 
on across the hills, carrying health and vigor to 
the parched interior of the State. There is no more 
delightful spot on this beautiful earth than this 
same Point of the Cypress Trees, and whoever 
visits it carries away a picture of mingled wild- 
ness, sublimity and beauty. 
It is well named, for here, within the compass 
of a few score acres is the diminishing home of the 
eypress trees of California. From this little spot 
came the seeds which have developed into hun- 
dreds of miles of beautiful hedges, and tens of 
thousands of beautiful trees. 
The parent-trees are venerable specimens, 
blown by the strong sea breezes into the most fan- 
tastic forms. Here is one on the very edge of the 
bluff; its trunk is horizontal, and its thick-leaved 
top slants up from the ground like the moss-cov- 
ered roof of an ancient farm house. Here stands 
another, grim and solitary, with a gnarled and 
twisted trunk upholding a _ close-reefed sail of 
bright green foliage. And there is a little group 
of them, kneeling together towards the east, like 
penitent pilgrims, yet showing by their defiant 
limbs, which are bent and knotted like the arms of 
wrestling giants, that although the proud west 
wind has brought them to their knees, still their 
spirit is not broken, and that they continually 
throw back his challenge, and will never yield 
their ground till the last green leaf has withered 
on their secant and flattened tops. 
In the midst of all this mingling of the beautiful 
