282 Life in the Open 



Deeper grows the carton, the road winding in and out, 

 now in a wide valley with the Cabrillo Mountains on the 

 left and low foothills reaching up to Mount Black Jack 

 and Orizaba's rugged rocks and peaks, about whose sum- 

 mit the wild goat makes his home. The cafion narrows 

 again, and tooling, bowling down a sharp descent, the 

 coach reaches the Eagle Nest Inn, beneath a clump of 

 cotton-woods. Here one may sit in the door-yard and 

 listen to the musical notes of the plumed quail that fill the 

 glades, and the rush of the brook after the winter rain, 

 or the booming roar of the ocean that comes up the long 

 cafion from the south shore. 



Here is refreshment for man and beast ; we listen to 

 the tales of the goat hunters, who are making their 

 headquarters here, then again take our seats, and the 

 coach winds away out of the Middle Ranch Cafion down 

 by the big spur of Orizaba which is an island divide. 

 About five miles from Eagle Nest we come to Little 

 Harbour Inn, where two perfect and diminutive harbours 

 face the west, affording a fine view of the rocky coast 

 up and down the island. The cliffs are precipitous in the 

 extreme ; but the feature which will perhaps attract the 

 attention of the man on the box seat or in the saddle 

 will be the succession of evidences of prehistoric occu- 

 pation pointed out by the driver. To the south of 

 Little Harbour a level plateau rises above the sea, the 

 site of an ancient Indian town, hundreds, perhaps thou- 

 sands of years old. I found it fifteen years ago, and 

 there are many interesting evidences of human occupa- 



