Another curious feature in connection with Santa Catalina Island is that boats built with glass bottoms are in use there. This is done to give the visitor an opportunity of studying and admiring at his leisure the wonderful sea flora that everywhere carpets the comparatively shallow ocean floor in the immediate neighbourhood of the island.
The beauty and variety of this latter must be seen to be believed. It seems almost a profanation to apply the hackneyed term of “seaweed” to these lovely forms of subaqueous tropical vegetation, although this, I suppose, is practically what they really are. Many of the species, however, are as big as small trees, and all colours are represented, from brightest tints of green to vivid crimson, that in an instant pales to lavender, quivers to gold, or slips into molten ruby or sapphire as the angle of view alters.
OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH OF A RECORD CATCH OF YELLOW FIN TUNA CAUGHT BY CARLTON AND ANOTHER FISHERMAN JOINTLY AT SANTA CATALINA
These wonderful undersea glades spring from a groundwork of coral no less beautifully tinted, and spread about the interstices, and strewn thick on the patches of golden sand, are the most beautiful shells imaginable. On one of my trips out I took with me a professional diver, a half-breed Mexican Indian, and he went down several times, and brought me up a very fine collection of shells, corals, and so forth. I have most of them still, and they have been greatly admired. Hiding deep down amongst the coral and seaweed, too, one catches glimpses of many weird fishes that no angler has ever succeeded in catching.
Altogether I was very pleased indeed with my experiences at lovely Santa Catalina, the tuna-fishing more particularly appealing to me greatly. As regards another form of sport that is peculiar to the island, however, I was somewhat disappointed. This was wild goat stalking, of which I had heard big things. The animals are supposed to have descended from some left there long ago by the old Spanish voyageurs, and were pictured to me as being very wild, shy, and difficult to approach.
Naturally I concluded I would like to have a shot at one or more of them, especially as I was assured that it was quite the correct thing to do; so a day was fixed, and I set off very early in the morning in quite high spirits. I was looking forward to something between a chamois hunt in the Swiss Alps and a day’s deer-stalking amongst the Highlands of Scotland. Alas, how different was the reality from the expectation! After riding on the backs of ponies along interminable mountain tracks, ascending higher and higher until we reached a region of utter sterility and barrenness, we at length came upon the goats—an entire herd of them. But they were not the least bit wild. On the contrary, they were quite disgustingly tame. They did not even attempt to run when I approached them, but stood stock-still and “baa-a-d.” I thought of Tennyson’s line about “catching the wild goat by the beard.” It would have been a quite easy feat as regards these goats.
To shoot them was, of course, quite out of the question. There was nothing for it but to retrace my footsteps to the lowlands whence I had come, which I accordingly did. My guide could not understand it. “So easy a shot!” I heard him muttering to himself. “Such beautiful horns! How splendid a trophy! What a chance thrown away!”
Los Angeles is one of the most up-to-date places imaginable, with its blaze of electric lights, its scurrying tramcars and innumerable swift automobiles. So, too, of course is San Francisco, and most of the other big Californian cities and towns; but some of the smaller mining camps up in the mountains are pretty rough. I once visited one of these which was known far and wide throughout the State as a “hard town,” being in fact a regular Mecca for gamblers and others of the light-fingered gentry.
While strolling round my attention was attracted by a leather-lunged individual who was appealing to a group of miners to the effect that he would bet he could cut the ace of spades, or any other card designated, in a pack which had been thoroughly shuffled by anyone.