170 CAMP FIRE REMINISCENCES 
protruding from the sea. Some of the peaks are 
two thousand feet high, and it is so cut up by cha- 
parral and cactus-grown gulches that the traveller 
would have great trouble finding his way over some 
of it. 
Arriving at Avalon I hunted up a Mexican guide 
called Joe and arranged with him to have horses at 
the hotel that evening for our trip across the island. 
Avalon is built at the mouth of a little canyon and 
around a small bay, the water of which looks deep 
and blue. High bare hills surround the town, but 
there are some trees in the canyon. 
In the bottom of an average Avalon boat there is 
a space into which a plate of glass has been let, 
through which the tourist has a splendid chance of 
seeing the home life of the denizens of these semi- 
tropical waters. I do not know of anything more 
interesting than a cruise over the kelp beds in one 
of these boats. Every creature one sees is either 
trying to protect itself from something stronger, 
or to kill something weaker. Nature aids its pro- 
tection, on the one hand, by schemes of form and 
colour, and on the other, by endowing it with the 
means of overcoming all such schemes. The heay- 
ier the gun, the stronger must be the armour, which 
only leads to the construction of a heavier gun—is 
the way the same thing is arranged by creatures — 
higher in the scale of creation. 
Returning to the pier I visited the curiosity shops 
and inspected the souvenirs arranged for visitors, 
the most beautiful of which, abalone or ear shells 
(Haliotis), are found in great numbers on this 
