Big Game at Sea 



So I fancy is Viverols, but in Soquel when I first 

 saw it one bright afternoon I imagined I had found 

 a Viverols ; yet now as I look down upon it from the 

 hills I cannot say why; it caught my fancy, that was 

 all; not Soquel alone, but the valley of Soquel, for 

 there is a valley, a town and a little river ; indeed the 

 real Soquel of my fancy is a combination of all these. 

 First there is the valley or the canon that reaches back 

 from the bay five, six, perhaps ten miles ; very straight 

 for a California canon, really two great arms of the 

 Santa Cruz range, which come creeping down to the 

 sea that piles in onto the sands of Laguna del Soquel, 

 and against the cliffs in such a melodious way that 

 five miles up the canon you may hear its roar. This 

 is due to some peculiar carrying quality of the air, 

 which intensifies the sound, as often when going down 

 the river I have heard the ominous roar of the sea 

 sighing through the meadows and woods, fancied 

 that a heavy gale was on, imagined great seas, storm 

 and disaster; yet, when I reached the shore the sea 

 was a disk of steel extending away to the distant 

 mountains of Monterey. 



It is well perhaps that you cannot ask me wherein 

 lay the real charm of Soquel as I should be embar- 

 rassed. Indeed I never stopped there; I was always 

 going through, or wading down the little river, the 

 real Soquel; but there is a Soquel with tangles of 

 roses, a peculiar quality of air, cool, rich, pure, 

 vibrant, velvet-like on the cheek. I remember a score 



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