254 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



these most tiny little beings. The first we saw we 

 took for hawk moths, as they darted like living flashes 

 from one flower to another, poising themselves with 

 beats of the wing, whose swiftness defies the eye, in 

 front of some gaudy flowers, from which they extract 

 the nectar with their long bills and tongues. As they 

 are so occupied within a few feet of the eye, for they 

 are very tame, gleams of ruby, gold, and emerald green 

 glitter and disappear as the sunlight plays on their 

 throats, crests, and backs, the feathers of which parts 

 are coloured with metallic tints of all colours of the 

 rainbow. What you would like would be the drive of 

 about 1 6 or 1 8 miles (there and back) through the 

 pine forests to ' Cypress Point,' the southern extremity 

 of Monterey Bay. The drive through the pines is 

 delightful, warm, and the air saturated with the 

 fragrance of the pines. Suddenly you emerge from 

 the forest on to the beach of the Pacific. The blue 

 ripple of the waves plays lazily on to the snow-white 

 sands of the shore, after washing round rugged rocks 

 jutting out of the sea some 200 yards off, which are 

 literally covered with enormous sea-lions, whose roaring 

 sounds loud above the surf. Quantities of seals are 

 fishing here and there through the bays, looking at you 

 within 50 yards with their large mournful eyes. On 

 the rocks amongst the lions are hundreds of gulls, 

 skuas, pelicans, and cormorants, evidently on the best 

 terms of friendship with their gigantic neighbours. 

 Douglas and I went yesterday for the first time, and 

 to-day repeated it, with a basket of lunch, and spent 

 all the day there. The end of the Point is celebrated 

 for a grove of cypress of great age, and I find the 

 species is C. macrocarpa, a very old friend of mine and 

 Powerscourt's. It grows into a most picturesque old 

 tree, reminding one of the cedars of Lebanon. This place 



