boo 
Canon of the island. Its walls are very rough and 
picturesque, and several hundred feet in height not far 
back from the sea. Along its center is a deep, smooth 
gash, cut in the rocky bottom by the stones and sand 
brought down from the mountains in the rainy seasons. 
Here the tides rise and fall without a sign of un- 
dulating swell, and looking down through the clear 
water, the bottom at 20 and 30 feet in depth seems to 
be within reach of one's hand. 
Another day we sailed toward the eastern end of the 
island to see the seal rookeries. All along from 
Prisoners' Harbor there are numerous sharp, narrow 
points, and deep little bays; and in the shelter of these 
the seals are found in herds resting upon the smooth- 
worn boulders and the beaches. Sailing within a few 
yards of Cochie's Point, and abruptly rounding it, we 
surprised several hundred of these master fishers of the 
sea. One by one and in dozens they slid or sprang into 
the water, barking excitedly, all but one huge old bull, 
who remained on his rock, head up and long neck out- 
stretched, barking louder than any of the rest. And 
their bark reminds one instantly of other scenes in a 
faraway land, where the silence of a great forest is 
broken by the deep baying of a pack of hounds after 
deer. 
The seals, all of the stellar variety, I believe, did 
not seem to be much afraid of us once they had gotten 
into the water, for they circled around and around, still 
barking and raising themselves high out of the water 
to get a good view of the boat. Further on we saw a 
number of other herds, but none so large as this. The 
picture of their rookery was taken by Rogers, the 
Santa Barbara photographer, by paddling up close to it 
in a skiff. At the time 441 of the animals were counted 
upon the beach and isolated boulders! 
It is along these islands that all the seals are caught 
for training and exhibition purposes. They were for- 
merly taken with the lasso, but finding that too danger- 
ous work, the fishermen now use nets. These they 
set at the entrance to some cave after dark, so that tht 
animals cannot see them, and then about daylight they 
frighten them by firing a gun. Out they come with a 
rush, sometimes in such uncheckable numbers that the 
net is torn away from the men. If a few are success- 
fully enmeshed, they often drown before they can be 
gotten out of the water and into the cages at hand. 
Again, when one or two old bulls are caught, the netters 
are more than glad to loosen the net and let them 
go, for they make a wicked fight when cornered. Sev- 
eral years ago a fisherman named Velasquez lassoed a 
moderately sized bull, and the animal made straight for 
him, and with one lightning-like grab tore out his in- 
testines. The poor fellow lived but a few moments. 
There is no better authority upon the seals, the sea 
otter and other animals of this vicinity, than Captain 
Prescott. He says that years ago there were thousands 
and thousands of seals along the islands, and that great 
numbers of them were annually slaughtered for their 
skins and oil, until finally they were nearly extermin- 
ated. The cheap by-products of petroleum have taken 
the place of the oil, so that they are no longer hunted 
except by occasional craft which catch a few for 
museums, and are therefore constantly increasing in 
numbers. From Richardson's Rock to Catalina Island, 
and including San Nicholas and Santa Barbara Islands, 
he estimates that there are now at least 4,500 of the 
animals, leopard, and stellar seals. At Richardson's 
Rock a few sea lions are found in the spring, bturtliey 
leave in June for parts unknown. 
The Alaskan fur seals often passed several winter 
months in the Santa Barbara Channel in fair numbers, 
but are rarely found here in late years. As to the sea 
otter, he says they are also increasing, as they have not 
been hunted in recent years. There are a few about 
the kelp beds of every island; but their favorite ground 
is around San Miguel Island, where, he believes, there 
may be as many as one hundred, and three hundred, 
including all the localities. 
The Captain favors killing off all the pelicans. At 
least 1,000 of them, he avers, are breeding this year at 
the east end of Santa Cruz Island. "Each bird eats 
at least four fish a day, so that this one colony destroys 
365,000 fish in a year — fish which are needed for the 
sustenance of man." 
On every point along the north side of the island, 
and back of the sheltered bays, are to be found im- 
mense deposits of shells, often five and six feet in 
depth. They are or every description, abalone, oyster, 
clam and conch, but consist principally of mussel shells, 
as these bivalves were most numerous and most easily 
obtained by the natives. Few of these deposits have 
been dug over, and undoubtedly contain many inter- 
esting specimens of the handiwork of the ancient in- 
habitants. In digging the foundations for the Inn, Mr. 
Fraser's workmen found a number of lava bowls, pestles, 
sinkers, flint knives and arrow points, and eighteen 
human skeletons. These latter were lying in a circle, on 
their backs, and with their feet to the charred remains 
of a fire. Some were the bones of men, and some of 
women, and besides the stone and flint implements 
buried with them, a number of rudely fashioned dark 
blue soap-stone beads and fishes were found. There is 
no soap-stone native to the island, nor none, it is said, 
to be found in California, so it must have been gotten 
in commerce with other tribes. It is also said that the 
little rudely-carved fishes were the most valued of all 
their possessions, and were used by the medicine men 
as a sort of fetich or idol while praying. Most of the 
beads are from three to six inches in length, an inch 
to an inch and a half in diameter in the center, and 
gradually tapering toward the ends. Some have holes 
drilled clear through their length, others none, while 
in still others the holes run in only a quarter or half 
inch from the ends. Whether they were strung around 
the neck, or used in other ways, is not determined, for 
those found seemed to have been laid upon the bosom 
of the dead. If they were used as ornaments, their 
owners seemed to have poor taste, for they could have 
made lovely necklaces and ear pendants from the 
gorgeously hued abalone and other shells. Many seal 
bones are found in the shell mounds, and but few re- 
mains of fish. It is likely that the main food of the 
people was seal meat, shell fish, acorns and berries. 
F O REST A ND S TREAM* 
Captain Prescott told us a very interesting and 
pathetic story about the very last native inhabitant of 
the islands. Out in the ocean fifty miles farther from 
the mainland than Santa Cruz, is San Nicholas Island, 
barren, except for a few shrubs, and waterless save for 
one small pond. In its whole circumference there is 
no harbor, and even in the mildest summer weather 
its fringe of gigantic surf affords a precarious landing. 
The early Spanish navigators found this island to be 
inhabited by a fairly numerous native people, and to- 
ward the end of the eighteenth century removed them 
all, as they thought, to the mainland, there to live 
and toil, under the care of the Franciscan fathers. About 
1832 some Spanish fishermen, landing upon the island 
to replenish their water casks, found human foot 
prints in the sand, but although they searched long and 
carefully they were unable to discover the maker of 
them, and they sailed away. Time passed, and for many 
a season the island was not again revisited; but in 
1852, eighteen years after the foot prints had been seen, 
another party landed on the isle, also to refill their 
water barrels. They, too, found human foot prints 011 
[Oct. 8, 1004. 
seeds of various berries. It is a fearlessly simple 
little creature, often coming around the cottages and 
inn in broad daylight. 
There are many varieties of birds upon the island, 
most of them unknown to the writer. Valley quail are 
extremely plentiful on the south side, and the mourning 
dove is heard on every hand. It is a shame that the 
State of California allows the latter to be shot at cer- 
tain seasons of the year. How can any one who has 
listened to their musically mournful notes have the 
heart to kill them? They are in no sense a game bird. 
And now as to the fishing: Along the shore and the 
edge of the kelp beds, quantities of sheepshead, rock 
cod, sea bass and other shallow water fish can be caught 
at any time. Out only a little more than a mile from 
Pelican Bay is a reef, where, at any time also, one may 
have all the sport he wishes with black sea bass or 
jewfish, whitefish and halibut. The true game fishes, 
the tuna, yellowtail, albicore, barracuda and white sea 
bass, do not appear until the last of April or the be- 
ginning of May, as a rule, but, so we were told, they 
come in far greater numbers and stay longer than any- 
FAY S HARBOR, SANTA CRUZ ISLAND. 
the beach and followed them to a cave which was in- 
habited, but no one was found in or near it. So, filling 
their casks, they rowed back to their bark and, after 
night had fallen, again landed and went to the cave. 
There they found a lone old woman, dressed in seal 
skin clothing. She seemed to be pleased to meet them, 
laughing and chattering in her strange language, and 
she hastened to get them a meal from her goodly store 
of various sea ..foods. By the use of crude signs the 
fishermen made her understand that they wished her to 
go to the mainland with them, and she, probably re- 
membering that such a craft had taken away her people 
and that it had now come tS .bell her to her kindred, 
readily consented to go. Wlieiflshe had been taken 
aboard, everything she there: saw surprised and inter- 
ested her, most of all the cook stove, with which she 
seemed to be infatuated; and all the way over she kept 
a fire going and cooked a number of dishes of her store 
of food, which she had insisted should d>e taken aboard. 
Arrived at the Mission, it was found that none of the 
natives there gathered could understand her language, 
and from all the surrounding tribes the Fathers had 
members come to see her, but not one of them could 
spak her language. Meanwhile, the old woman seemed 
to be happy in her new surroundings, and interested in 
everything she saw, anxious to work and be of use in 
the family with which she resided. The sight of a team 
of oxen slowly dragging a plow was the cause of in- 
tense astonishment, and soon recovering from her fear 
of them, she followed them about the whole day with 
great interest. In a few weeks after her arrival the 
various fruits began to ripen,- and she ate of them 
heartily. Used all her life to the simple sea foods, seal 
meat and shell fish, this new diet had a disastrous ef- 
fect; one day she was stricken with an acute attack of 
cholera morbus and died after a few hours of suffering. 
So passed the last of the San Nicholas people, a tribe 
distinct from those who had inhabited the neighboring- 
island of Santa Cruz. A few of the latter were still 
gathered around the Mission, and had vainly endeavored 
to converse with her. 
Years and years ago some one turned some pigs loose 
upon the island (boars they are called), and they thrived. 
Indeed, so numerous did they become that last winter 
the owners of the land offered their herders' and laborers 
a bounty of five cents for every one they could kill. 
To give an idea of the great number of these animals 
it can be said that during the past five months the 
chief herder, or ranger, with his pack of boar hounds, 
has killed 2,600 of them. They are an exceedingly shy 
animal quite as much so as the bear, and, like the latter, 
depend upon their ears and nose, rather than their eyes, 
to apprise them of danger. It is really good sport to 
stalk them, for as much care must be exercised as in 
approaching many game animals. The long tusks of 
a boar are tto mean trophy; nor is a wounded old boar, 
or one brought to bay, unworthy of the hunter, for they 
often make a desperate and fearless fight. 
Save for the mice, the only quadruped native to the 
island is a queer little fox, much smaller than the "kit," 
or "swift," of the plain, which inhabits it in great num- 
bers. Its legs and under parts are a deep brownish 
red, its back and tail a dark silvery gray. It climbs 
trees! and most curious of all, it is by no_ means strictly 
carnivorous, for its secretions consist in part of the 
where else on the southern California coast. Mr. 
Harrison T. Kendall, of Pasadena, and a member of the 
Tuna Club, fished these waters last season and says 
that he never saw so many tuna elsewhere; there were 
times when acres and acres of the placid sea were alive 
with them._ Mr. W. G. Campbell, of New York, and 
Cass, Mexico, is another enthusiastic fisherman who 
has had great sport here and prefers the Santa Cruz 
fishing ground to any other he has found from Central 
America northward. All in all, this lovely and peculiar 
island is a place which we leave with regret. The 
climate never cold and never too warm, the grand 
forests, cliffs, canons, mountains, and the clear, green 
sea with its wealth of fish surrounding them are well 
nigh irresistible. There is much for the general tourist, 
the invalid, the world-weary, for the scientist and the 
angler, which most likely cannot be duplicated on either 
coast of our country. Manzanita. 
An Adventure in the Jersey Woods 
s _ It is now more than twenty years ago, yet vividly as 
if occurring yesterday, arises my memory of an expe- 
rience in a lonely forest at midnight in the lower section 
of Monmouth county, New Jersey. 
Manasquan River, which is quite a pretentious stream, 
is the dividing line between Monmouth and Ocean coun- 
ties, and it was near its banks I got the worst scare of 
my more or less eventful career. 
It was late in November, and important business of my 
employer kept me waiting at the home of a person who 
was absent until past 11 o'clock, it being imperative that 
I should conclude a business arrangement that night and 
be on hand with some commercial paper the following 
morning. The lateness of the hour precluded the possi- 
bility of hiring a conveyance, and the last train had left 
the railroad station, three miles distant, hours before. My 
shortest route lay partly along an old road but little 
used ; this short cut made the distance home 11 miles, and 
the night was bitterly cold. I was not overjoyed at my 
enforced detention and consequent privilege of "hoofing 
it," but started out, being fully assured I would have no 
difficulty in keeping the trail. 
The moon was shining brightly, so that every object 
could be distinctly seen, and as seven of the eleven miles 
were through swamp and roads without a house the entire 
distance, it added greatly to my comfort. There had been 
a heavy rain a day or two previous, and the sandy road 
was washed as level as a floor, which in turn being now 
frozen solidly, made walking comfortable, or as comfort- 
able as a pair of new calfskin boots not yet "broken in" 
would allow. 
How well I remember those boots, and the good- 
natured countenance of "Elisha Peggs" who made them ! 
I had a first-class revolver in my pocket, was young and 
active, and besides, what was there to dread, other than 
the feeling of loneliness? I had gotten perhaps half over 
the worst part, and was stepping briskly along, when 
suddenly to my left I heard a crackling among the bushes. 
I stopped short and peered in, but could see nothing. In 
a moment, however, the noise was repeated, accompanied 
by a shuffling among the leaves. Stepping around a clump 
of laurel bushes, expecting to see a stray horse or cow, 
j udge of my consternation to see an immense brown bear 
