A La California/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
IN THE MISTS OF THE PACIFIC.
Steele's Ranch.—The Model Dairy of California.—Captain Graham.—A Semi-Tropical Garden.—Frightful Contest with a Grizzly.—Bear and for-Bear.—The True King of Beasts.—The Model of Conservatism.—How the Hunters lay for Bruin.:—A Foolhardy Feat.—An Adventure on the San Joaquin.—A Bear on a Spree.—Don't stand on Ceremony with a Bear.—How a California Bear entertained a Mexican Bull.—How Native Californians Lasso the Bear.—How a Yankee did it.—The Bear ahead.—Pebble Beach of Pescadero.—Cona.—The oldest Inhabitant.—Don Felipe Armas.—Don Salvador Mosquito.—The Man who was a Soldier.-A Hundred Years ago.—Catching Salmon Trout.—Shooting Sea-Lions.—Wild Scene on the Sea-Shore.
Steele's is one of the largest dairy ranches on the Pacific coast. It is owned and run by the brothers Steele, formerly of Delaware County, New York. General Steele, who served in the Union army during the war, and the deputy-sheriff of Delaware County, who was murdered by the "Anti-Renters," some years ago, were brothers of the proprietors. There are two fine two-story frame houses on the ranch, a fourth of a mile apart, which, unlike the majority of houses on this part of the coast, are elegantly finished, surrounded with shade-trees and gardens, and provided with all the comforts of life. We found one of the Steeles at home. He told us that in the earlier part of the season they milked between six and seven hundred cows; but as the feed grows shorter with the advance of the dry season, the number gradually dwindles down twenty-five to fifty per cent. As fast as the cows dry up they are sent to the mountains and allowed to remain until the rains commence, in November and December. The Steeles came here about nine years ago, and rented this ranch of seventeen thousand acres for six thousand dollars per annum, with the privilege of purchasing all south of the Gazos Creek for six dollars per acre. The ranch was granted under the Mexican Republic to old Captain Graham, a Cherokee Indian half-breed, formerly a Rocky Mountain trapper. He had no business tact, and old age and aguardiente combined had completely unfitted him for carrying on this estate, and the still larger and more valuable one known as Seyante, near Santa Cruz. Mortgages and lawsuits eat it all up, and it passed out of his hands for the beggarly sum of twenty thousand dollars. It was considered one of the most barren and unattractive localities on the coast, but the Steeles saw its capabilities, and settled upon it. They soon purchased seven thousand acres of the land in the vicinity of their present homes, and went into the dairy business on a large scale. Others imitated their success on a smaller scale, and there are now over fifteen hundred cows on the ranch. These are fed only on the native "wild oats," which in place of grass cover all the open country of California, but with proper effort vegetables could be raised, to double the milk-producing capacity of the ranch. Alfalfa might flourish in some localities and thus largely increase the feed; but the long dry season, extending from the first of May to November or December, is too much for the tame grasses of the Atlantic States, and no improvement in that direction appears practicable. The native wild oats, however, furnish both green feed and nourishing hay naturally, no cutting or housing being required. As the ground grows dry under the heat of the summer sun, the oats dry up and become of a bright golden color. All the nutritious properties are perfectly preserved, and so long as no rain falls upon this standing hay, it is eaten with avidity by the cattle and keeps them sleek and fat. When the first rain comes, the oats break down and fall upon the earth, and in a few weeks totally disappear, leaving nothing whatever for the cattle to feed upon until the seed, which during the summer has been sowing itself in the cracks and crevices of the earth formed by the drying up of the soil, and been trampled in and covered up by the hoofs of the animals, starts into new life and in a few days clothes all the hills in vivid green again.
Six years ago the Steeles made, from one day's milk of their own cows, a cheese of the richest description, weighing within a fraction of four thousand pounds (two tons), which they presented to the Sanitary Commission. It was exhibited in San Francisco until it had produced several thousands of dollars, and then cut up and sold at one dollar in gold per pound for the benefit of the cause. A cousin of the family, who lives with them, enjoys the rare distinction of being the only man in California elected, in 1869, to the Legislature fairly and squarely on the Fifteenth Amendment issue. They find their business so profitable that they have bought another ranch of only forty-five thousand acres in San Luis Obispo County, which they were then stocking. They intend to carry on both dairies, but the business of each will be kept separate, and the style of the firms will be "Steele Brothers of San Mateo," and "Steele Brothers of San Luis Obispo." For the prices realized for their butter and cheese—they are too far from the city to sell their milk—see the market quotations in the San Francisco dailies. Yet California imports immense quantities of butter and cheese annually, while there are still millions of acres of cheap, unoccupied grazing lands scattered all through the State, from San Diego to Del Norte, and from the coast to the far recesses of the Sierra Nevada.
Mr. Steele asked us to walk back into the garden, and see what could be done in six years in the way of fruit-raising on land which had, until quite recently, been supposed fit only to raise jackass-rabbits and long-horned, worthless, and savage Spanish cattle. A little "arroyo" comes down from the canon in the mountains near the house, and makes a bend around the ground selected for the garden. Along the bank of this "arroyo" willows and other trees were planted to aid the large, scattered live-oaks which stood there in breaking the winds. Thus sheltered, the apple, pear, fig, plum, apricot, peach, soft-shelled almond, and other trees, grew up like weeds, and soon were loaded with luscious fruit. From one apple-tree, the second year after it was planted out, Mr. Steele picked two bushels of the finest apples. The pear-trees I found had every branch propped up separately, and on some the fruit would weigh at least four times as much as the entire tree, roots, trunk, branches, and leaves. The figs were covered with the second crop of the season, nearly ripe, and the plums were like great yellow balls of sugar and butter. All the fruit is perfect; even the grapes, which flourish best in the hot, sunny valleys, being large and delicious. Every variety of vegetable seemed to flourish; golden squashes and pumpkins covered the ground, and luscious melons lay ripening in the sun. Among the curiosities we noticed a bed of peanuts. These pets of the Bowery patrons grow luxuriantly in California, being largely cultivated by the Chinese in Sacramento Valley, and are larger and better than any imported; the tops look something like alfalfa. All this without irrigation or other cultivation than spading and hoeing, in the most inhospitable climate found in California below the snow-belt of the Sierra Nevada.
The grizzly bear still prowls in the redwoods, and occasionally comes down to levy tribute on the rancheros. My friend showed me where two huge grizzlies were seen lying in an arroyo sunning themselves only a few days before. The party who saw them had lost no cattle of that description, and he, in the expressive language of California, "got up and dusted" in the opposite direction as fast as his horse could carry him. And well he might. Mr. 
LASSOING A GRIZZLY.
Steele pointed out where a fearful scene was enacted just above his garden in 1867. An old she-bear came down with her two cubs in the day-time and seized a hog. Two men employed on the ranch, both Portuguese, started to rescue the hog. One had a gun, the other only a garden mattock. They found her by the fence eating the hog, and yelled at her to drive her away. She accepted the challenge, and with a growl dashed over the fence and after them. The man with the gun pointed it full-cocked at her head, but, as he afterward admitted, when he felt her hot breath in his face, became demoralized, dropped the weapon and jumped over the fence. His companion followed his example, and they jumped back and forth for some minutes with the enraged brute in close pursuit. At length the man who had the mattock started to run across the field toward the house; but the bear caught him, threw him down, bit him through the thigh, and then started after the other assailant. Had the wounded man feigned death he would have been saved; but not understanding grizzly fighting, he jumped up and began shouting for help. At this she turned upon him more infuriated than ever, and, seizing him by the side, literally tore him in pieces, killing him instantly. The other man escaped. The next morning the bear, bear-like, returned to finish the hog, and was shot by a party lying in wait for her.
Three or four years ago a San Franciscan staying at the Forest Home, on the mountains between Santa Cruz and San José, a few miles east of this place, was one day digging up a honeysuckle bush near the house, when he saw something stir in the bushes and gave it a poke with the hoe. A moment later the ladies saw him vault over the fence into the door-yard, with a grizzly at his heels. He managed to escape, but left a portion of his pantaloons behind as a keepsake. That night the family slept n the second story of the house with the windows fastened down.
Almost every schoolboy in America is familiar with stories of the savage ferocity and immense strength of the grizzly bear of California. As a rule as I think I may have intimated elsewhere, hunters stories may safely be taken with some grains of allowance. The lion has generally been represented as the "King of Beasts," and numberless are the stories of his courage, strength, and ferocity. The truth is, the lion is nothing but a great overgrown cat, and his courage is just that of the cat on a large scale, and nothing more. A cat will fight when cornered, from sheer excess of cowardice, but she always prefers running. Find the weight of a cat and that of a lion, and just so many times as the lion is heavier than the cat, just so much more fight and courage of the same character exactly you will find in him. But the stories of the dangerous character of the grizzly, unlike those relating to the lion, are not and cannot be exaggerated. I know from observation that the oldest hunters are the most afraid of a contest with the grizzly, and take the greatest pains to avoid one. It is always the young, inexperienced hunter who sallies out half armed and alone to fight a grizzly; and one dose is generally found quite enough to cure him of such folly.
The plain truth is, that the grizzly is much better entitled to the title of King of Beasts than the lion. He fears neither man nor beast, and, instead of waiting to be attacked, will, if hungry or in any way out of humor, invariably become the attacking party whatever the odds against him. A lucky shot penetrating the heart, breaking the vertebra, or entering the brain, will sometimes cause almost instant death; but in ninety- nine cases out of a hundred the first shot only enrages and infuriates him, and renders him the most dangerous animal on earth to fall into the clutches of.
The bear, like the hog, is "set in his ways," obstinate, and inclined to adhere, with unflinching pertinacity, to established customs and habits. He never goes back on the traditions of his race. He is the true natural conservative, believes to the utmost in the wisdom of his ancestors, and hates innovation. He forgets nothing, and learns nothing from experience. You can always count on his doing a certain thing in a certain contingency; as they say out west, "he averages well." He invariably buries his prey where he kills it, and returns at night to feed upon it. The knowledge of this fact has before now saved many a hunter's life. The man who has the courage and nerve to lie still as if dead, and never cringe when he is lifted by the bear's teeth, stands a chance of being buried under a pile of loose leaves and rubbish, and left for hours or until night; but woe to him if he moves so much a finger before he knows that the bear is out of sight; his fate is then certain. Rancheros who are annoyed by the killing of their stock by grizzlies take advantage of this habit of the bear, and, on discovering where one has buried a steer, hog. or sheep, construct a platform high up on a large tree, if one is convenient, or dig a pit if no tree is near, and on the platform or in the pit await the bear's return at night, prepared to give him a volley from the largest and most formidable guns obtainable. I have often seen these platforms in the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range, and listened to the stories of the hunters who "went for" the grizzlies there.
On the 14th of March, 1871, George W. Teel, a youth of seventeen years, employed as a stock-herder on the foothills of the Mount St. Helena range, only five miles from Calistoga, discovered the track of a grizzly near his camp, and, boy-like, determined to lay for him. Six hundred yards from camp he dug a hole in the ground deep enough to wholly hide him, then hung a piece of venison on a tree near by, loaded his double-barreled gun with all the powder he dared place in it, and two-ounce slugs, and commenced his nightly vigil. About two o'clock in the morning he heard the snorting of a grizzly, and on looking up, he beheld, about eight feet off, two glaring eyes in the head of a large-sized bear. It was quite dark and foggy. The young man leveled his gun, took aim, and as he saw the bear raise his head, he fired, and the ball entered the animal's neck, breaking it, the slug ranging along the back and lodging under the skin. The 
A CHANGE OF BASE.
bear was so close that the powder singed the hair on its breast. The grizzly had grasped in its teeth an oak bush, and in one leap fell dead at the feet of its captor.
Young Teel, having been successful, retired to his camp contented. At daybreak he left his couch and went to the place where he had killed the animal, and to his surprise found he had killed a grizzly of the size of an ox, weighing fully eight hundred pounds. He was in luck.
About the same time an experienced hunter in Southern California met with a terrible adventure, with more serious results. The affair is related by the Los Angeles Star, of February 19th, 1871: "John Searles, well known in this section of the State as an expert miner, left Soledad Cañon a few days ago, with a couple of friends, on a hunting expedition into the mountains north and east of La Liebre Rancho, which abound in deer and bear. Wednesday evening, the party encamped at the foot of a large cañon, and, leaving his friends, Mr. Searles took his rifle, a Spencer, and went up the cañon hunting; about a mile from camp, he killed and dressed a grizzly. Judging from the fresh sign that bear was plenty, he went on up the canon, looking for a good place for a hunting camp. Half a mile from where he left his horse, in very thick brush, he came suddenly upon a large grizzly, breaking down the chemisal, in a thicket. After waiting in the trail a few minutes, with his gun ready, the bear emerged from the bush and made a rush at him. A ball from the Spencer knocked it down; but, almost immediately rising, the bear—one of the largest kind—closed with him. The Spencer missing fire three times, a terrible hand-to-hand combat ensued, the man fighting for life with his fists, and the bear fighting for death with teeth and claws. The unequal conflict was not prolonged. The bear, weakened by loss of blood which poured from the rifle-ball wound, left the man for dead, and crawling into the brush, bled to death. After the bear left, Mr. Searles, who had feigned death, arose and examined his wounds. A bite from the bear had broken his lower jaw in several places, one of his arms were broken, and terrible wounds in the breast and side were bleeding fast. In this condition he crawled to his horse, mounted and rode to camp. He was brought to this city last night, by his friends, and best surgical aid summoned to his assistance, although it is feared that his injuries are fatal."
"If you play with the bear, you must take bear's play," is a common saying, but its full force and significance can only be appreciated by one who has had a tussle with a California grizzly.
The Stockton Republican of March 14th, 1871—the very day on which both the last related affairs occurred—gave the following account of a grizzly fight which occurred in the Valley of the San Joaquin a few days previously: "W. D. Fowler and George Day were out hunting in the hills near Oristemba Creek, on the west side of San Joaquin River, in Stanislaus county, and came upon a large female grizzly bear, which they commenced firing at. The bear retreated slowly, and finally went to her lair in some underbrush. The men kept up a steady fire at her at long range, the bear fighting desperately, tearing the brush and breaking limbs, but refusing to leave her position. After awhile, they noticed her carry off, one at a time, two small cubs and hide them in the bush. Finding their range too lone to be effective, the hunters undertook to reach a position nearer the bear by going around a hill, and just when they were ascending the knoll to get a sight of her, she suddenly came over the brow and dashed at them in the most ferocious manner When discovered, she was so near them that escape was impossible, and the men stood their ground. On she came, tearing up the bushes and biting the shrubs. When within ten feet of Fowler he fired, and the shot broke her neck. She fell, and a shot from Day's rifle passed through her heart. It was a narrow escape. The hunters captured the two cubs the mother had hid in the brush, and another, which still remained in the nest. The two cubs hidden in the brush were colored precisely alike, while the one remaining in the nest was somewhat darker, from which the hunters concluded that the old bear they killed had only secreted her own young, and that the one remaining in the nest belonged to another bear and another family."
In the spring of 1869, a grizzly of the largest size "ranched" in the San Andreas Valley, near the new reservoir of the Spring Valley Water Company,—from which San Francisco is supplied,—within fifteen miles of the Golden City, for several weeks. Nobody about there had lost any bears, and nobody went after him, so he fattened on the luxuriant clover and wild oats until the range began to give out, and then leisurely departed for the mountains. No one asked him to come, and nobody cared to delay his departure.
The grizzly is susceptible of domestication, but his moods are varied even then. A few years ago, while a museum was being moved from one part of San Francisco to another, old Samson—who chawed up "Grizzly Adams" once upon a time and rendered him beautiful for life—got out of his cage and took possession of the lower part of the city. A crowd of excited men and boys were soon at his heels, endeavoring to corral him, but for a long time without success. At length, tired of picking up damaged fruit from the gutters, upsetting ash-barrels and swill-barrels, and frightening all the women and children on the street out of their seven senses, he took refuge in a livery stable, where he was speedily surrounded and cornered. A number of men formed a hollow square around him with pitchforks, and an Irishman with a rope formed into a noose crawled up within reach of the beleaguered animal, and would have lassoed him, but for the fact that he was afraid to attempt it. "Why don't you slip it over his nose so that he can't bite?" shouted a bystander to him. "Well, you see I would, but thin I ain't acquainted with him jist!" was the hesitating reply. "Oh, never mind being acquainted with him; don't stand on ceremony with a bear. Just take off your hat and introduce yourself!" was the jeering rejoinder; and a roar of laughter from the entire crowd testified to their keen appreciation of the joke. In January, 1870, I saw that same bear in the Plaza de Toros, in the city of Vera Cruz, Mexico, dig a hole large enough to hold an elephant, take a bull which had been set to fight him in his paws as if he were an infant, carry him to the pit, hurl him into it head foremost, slap him on the side with his tremendous paws until his breath was half knocked out of his body, and then hold him down with one paw while he deliberately buried him alive by raking the earth down upon him with the other. Samson had not a tooth to bite with at that time, they having been in the course of years and many fights worn down to the gums; but his strength was that of an elephant, and his claws, eight inches in length, curved like a rainbow and sharp as a knife would enable him to tear open anything made of flesh and blood as you or I would tear open a banana.
I am satisfied that an average grizzly could at any time whip the strongest African lion in a fair stand-up fight, while a full-grown bull is no more to him than a rat is to the largest house-cat.
The grizzly is becoming scarce in some parts of the State, but he is still found in great numbers in the Coast Range Mountains, from San Diego to Del Norte.
The Mexican or native Californian vaqueros in Santa Barbara and neighboring counties, riding out three or four together on their fleet, well-trained caballos, will without fear attack a grizzly, lasso him from different directions, and not only conquer him, but actually so tie him up and entangle him as to eventually tire him out, and bring him into the town an unresisting prisoner.
But it is not every man who can do that little trick. The natives relate with pardonable exultation the story of a Yankee who came to California in early days, and soon acquired the trick of throwing the lasso with considerable dexterity. Hearing others talk of lassoing the grizzly, he started out full of confidence, to show them that he could do what any other man could do in that line. He soon raised a bear, threw the lasso with unerring aim, and reined back his trembling steed to give the brute an astonisher; when the rieta—which is attached always to the pommel of the saddle—came up taut. Judge of his astonishment, my little friends, when that bear quietly assumed a sitting position, took hold of the rieta, and commenced to draw it in, hand over hand! The hapless descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers stuck to the horse and saddle until he saw the slack all drawn in, and the bear and horse coming rapidly together,—with what result could not be for a moment doubted,—then hastily descended and hunted a tree, abandoning the horse to the underwriters. He had learned only half of the trick. Two skillful men, operating from opposite sides, can master a bear and choke him between them; but with only one man, one horse, and one bear, it is "bear and for bear" all the time.
Returning from the Steele Brothers' dairy at Point Año Nuevo, we passed the famed "Pebble Beach of Pescadero," a great resort, especially for 
THE PULL ON THE WRONG SIDE.
ladies and children, in the summer season. Two ledges of sharp, jagged rocks jut out into the ocean about two hundred and fifty yards apart. Between them extends a sandstone bluff some thirty feet in height, in front of which stretches the beach some twenty to fifty feet in width at high or low tide. The beach is composed wholly of pebbles, from the size of a grain of wheat to that of a good-sized walnut. They are of all colors—white, red, brown, yellow, green, and variegated. Those of a beautiful opaline hue are most plentiful, and all are highly polished by attrition. Plain agates, moss-agates, cornelians and greenstones abound; and it is claimed that the more precious stones, including diamonds and rubies, are sometimes met with. The wife of Francisco Garcia, a well-known saloon-keeper on Montgomery Street, in San Francisco, has a genuine diamond which she found here, but I am not certain that it was placed there by purely natural agencies Hundreds of tons of the pebbles are washed up by every storm, and it is supposed that there is a layer or stratum of soft rock or clay in which they are imbedded, extending out into the sea from beneath the sandstone. Every day, in summer, many ladies and children go down to this beach pebble-hunting, carrying their lunch-baskets with them. They lie down at full length upon their faces on the drifts of polished pebbles, and with a stick dig down into the mass in search of special beauties. A quart of fine ones is a good day's work, and a lady of unusually fastidious taste will frequently work all day for a cupfull. Collections of these pebbles may be seen in most of the better class of houses in San Francisco, and along the coast, though they cannot be considered as of any great value. I walked along the beach, but did not see any diamonds, and filled my pockets at random. Some of the moss-agate and similar stones make really handsome jewelry when cut and set in gold. Santa Cruz, lower down the coast, has also a pebble beach, but it is not equal to this at Pescadero.
At the beach I saw one of the characters of the locality—Cona, an immense Newfoundland dog. One day a little girl picking pebbles was caught by a huge roller from the Pacific, and carried out into the roaring surf. Cona dashed in, caught her by the hair, and, after a stout struggle, brought her ashore alive. Of course Cona became a hero at once, and was duly lionized and spoiled. He enjoyed his dignity for some time, but eventually, finding himself neglected, he determined, by a bold stroke, to regain his popularity. Starting off for the beach, he saw a lady out swimming. He at once rushed in, seized her by the hair, and, in spite of her frantic resistance, landed her on the beach. He has become a necessary nuisance, and now insists on rescuing every man, woman, and child whom he catches swimming. He was looking for somebody to rescue when we came along there—but looked in vain; it was not a good day for rescuing, and he was sad at heart and dejected of mien.
The age attained by the native Spanish-American—and usually part Indian—inhabitants of this coast is truly marvelous. I never knew but one of them to die, and he might have lived to a green old age had he not been knocked down and run over by a runaway flour-mill truck team, on Pine street, in San Francisco, in 1868. He was one hundred and four years old when he was thus prematurely cut off. It is an undoubted fact that Cimon Avilos, now or recently living at Todos Santos Bay, Lower California, was one of the military guard who presented arms when Padre Junipero Serra raised the cross at the Mission San Diego, in July, in the year of our Lord and Master 1769. This old conquistador had been a soldier in the Spanish army several years before that event, so that his age to-day can be hardly less than one hundred and twenty-five years. I have half a notion to go down there some day and get the jovial young fellow to come up to San Francisco, and take a little pasear over the Pacific Railroad. At Pescadero the claim to being "the oldest inhabitant" is at issue between Don Salvador Mosquito, a Mission Indian, and Señor Don Felipe Armas, a Californian of Spanish parentage. Armas remembers that when King Kamehameha I., of Hawaii, found that the cattle which had grown up wild on his islands had become an unbearable nuisance, and sent over to this country for vaqueros to kill them off—a historical fact—he, Armas, was selected as one of the party. He was then said to be thirty-five years of age, but so many years have since elapsed that he "has lost the run of them entirely." The number of his immediate descendants is still increasing at the rate of one yearly. Salvador Mosquito was baptized under another name, but the stout-built Mission in which the ceremony was performed has long since crumbled into dust, and the vaqueros, who, under the direction of the Holy Fathers (also dead), went out to lasso him and bring him in for the glory of God, have for many a year been hunting ethereal cattle on phantom steeds, over the ranchos of the blessed. I saw him the other day. He came down to the grocery to get a bottle of whisky, to which he is very partial when he cannot get milk, which is usually the case. This antidiluvian joker is always as dry as a fish. They trust him at the grocery until his bill amounts to two or three dollars, and then demand the coin. Lifting his hands, with the expression of a dying saint, the old rascal ejaculates, "Yo muy pobre, señor! Yo tengo nada, nada, nada! señor!" with solemn earnestness and every appearance of perfect honesty. But the clerk invariably goes for him in the most business-like manner. Placing his elbow against the venerable patriarch's windpipe, he pushes him back against the wall, and, bringing the pressure up to about the point of one hundred and sixty pounds to the square inch, gradually cuts off his supply of breath and consequent power of resistance; then running the other hand into his pocket produces a more or less well-filled purse, from which he repays the establishment and squares the account. Then Don Salvador denounces the act as a "damned Yankee trick," goes out in front of the store, spits in the dust, mixes up a little mud, in which he dips his finger, and making crosses and other cabalistic signs upon the door, and windows, and walls, calls down the 
THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL
vengeance of an offended Heaven on the accursed tienda and everything therein. "May its walls fall out, its roof cave in, its contents be ground to powder, and its site be given over, as a last crowning curse, to the everlasting habitation and proprietorship of the worthy descendants of the chief robber, son of a priest and a woman without virtue, who now occupies it!" Then he goes home with a heart full of wrath and righteous bitterness. Next morning he returns to see the ruins, is duly astonished at seeing the place stand unharmed, goes in and commences a new account. Mosquito appears to be a man of strong but transitory prejudices. His tribe many years ago dwindled down to some forty or fifty, who, under the command of the chief, Pomponio, made their headquarters in the redwood forest above Pescadero, near to the source of the stream now bearing his name. From thence they made periodical forays on the ranchos below; but as the good Fathers had caught and "converted" all their female friends, they finally went down to the old Mission Santa Clara or San José—I am not certain which—and, breaking into the corral one night. carried off a "mahala" apiece from under the very noses of their pious guardians. For this daring act of sacrilege they were pursued by the Spanish soldiers to their mountain fastness and exterminated. Mosquito not being big enough for slaughter was not killed, but was caught and baptized. He is a buen Christiano, especially when about half-full of whisky. I have calculated the number of red peppers he must have eaten since that time, and the aggregate is something more bulky than Mount Diablo, and it would take more figures to express it than are required in the annual exhibit of our national debt.
"Pescadero" is the Spanish for "fishery," and the name is indicative. The creeks which come down from the mountains all alone: this coast swarm with the spotted trout of California, and afford fine sport in the early part of the season. In places along their banks, the honeysuckle bushes and other shrubs and vines form a chapparal so dense that you must wade for miles to whip the stream; but one hundred, two hundred, or even three hundred trout are often basketed in a single day's fishing by one individual. It does not rain here from April until the last of November or December; but as the days become shorter, and the sun's rays less powerful, the evaporation which caused the streams to dwindle to mere strings of detached ponds decreases, and all over the State, especially in the Coast Range, the rivers commence to rise. Thompson, a hospitable landlord, took me down to the mouth of the Pescadero for a little sport. We sent a Mexican after worms for bait. The Mexican sent a negro, and we sent a Chinaman after the negro, and got them all at last. The row down the creek was short. We saw hundreds of mallards and teal, which we could not shoot, because the law forbids it—very properly—until the 15th of the month, and large flocks of long-billed curlew and other birds, such as crows, buzzards, gulls, etc., etc., which we did not want to kill. There is a bar at the mouth of the creek, and we chained our boat to a high rock inside it and walked down to the ocean. The shores were lined with drift, trunks of great pine and redwood trees, timbers of wrecked ships, etc., etc., and the scenery was wildly romantic. We passed the festering carcasses of half a dozen great sea lions, which had been killed by a fishing party with Henry rifles some weeks before. The fish come into the creek with the tide, and bite best before the ebb commences. If the sea lions who cover the rocks just outside, follow them into the creek, the fish all run out—and there is no more sport that day. So the fishermen shoot some of the sea-lions to make the rest leave. Before we reached the mouth we saw two wolves on the opposite shore, running around by the edge of the breakers and playing like dogs. One ran off when he saw us, and the other lifted up his nose and voice, and treated us to the most vivid illustration imaginable of
"The wolf's lone howl on Onalaska's shore,"
and then followed his companion. As we rounded the bluff we saw some rocks just off shore covered with sea-lions. It was low tide, and we could run out to within fifty yards of them. I had a large-sized Smith & Wesson revolver, a capital weapon for such use, and as they threw up their heads to look at us, I sent a bullet into the side of a big spotted fellow who was lying high up and presented a good mark. The ball struck him with a dull thud, and as he rolled off into the waves the whole herd went splashing after him. Half a dozen of them swam down in a line to within twenty or thirty yards of us, and looked at us with their great lustrous brown eyes, whether in sorrow or in anger we could not tell, until I hit one on his head, and as the bullet glanced off, he disappeared with a grunt and porpoise-like plunge. Thompson took the pistol, and as one rose again fired and hit him squarely in the mouth. He shook his head from side to side, as if blind with pain, and then went down, leaving great dark spots in the water. They all started off then southward, and I was not sorry. Inveterate sportsman that I have been from my youth up, I cannot get over the feeling that the killing of defenseless creatures like these, and allowing their bodies to rot on the beach, is something akin to murder.
The rocks we stood on, and which are covered at high tide, were incrusted with mussels of immense size. Some of them measure twelve inches in length, and Thompson tells me that he has seen them fifteen inches long. They are fat and luscious, and a few epicures come down to the coast every season to indulge in clam-bakes and mussel-roasts; but this species of shell-fish is so common, and consequently cheap, that not one in ten of the people of California ever eat them. In holes in the rocks, filled with pure sea-water, we saw curious things like great sunflowers with bright-green petals. These we could not detach from the rocks, and at one touch they would curl up into a slippery ball with all the petals hidden inside.
We went back to our boat as the tide came 
SHOOTING SEA LIONS
booming in, and prepared to fish for salmon-trout, as they are called; really they are yearling and two-year-old salmon. They will bite at a worm, spoon, or fly, but best at worms. I had hardly put in my hook before a noble fellow made the line fairly hiss through the water for a few minutes. Then we drew him, panting and exhausted with his struggles, alongside the rocks, and with a landing net got him into the boat. He was twenty inches in length, and the handsomest fish I ever caught. Eight-and ten-pounders are common, and they are the most delicious fish for frying or broiling which ever swam the sea. Great crabs came in also with the tide, and we dipped several of them out with our net. In two hours we corralled fourteen salmon-trout, losing several more by hooks breaking, and then, the slack-water coming- on and the fish ceasing to bite with avidity, hoisted sail and went swiftly gliding back up the stream to the hotel. It was, all in all, the best morning's sport I have ever enjoyed in my life, and I have shot and fished from the Red River of the North to the Rio Grande, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.