Over by that rock a hermit crab has taken possession of a sea snail's shell, and set up housekeeping; with body partly hidden he waves his long bony tentacles, while his beady eyes stare at us from the doorway of his home.
Now a sea grotto passes beneath us, marvelously beautiful with its frostlike tracery. Its arched openings are hung with a tapestry of pink sea moss, which swings back and forth to the action of the waves, as if moved by some invisible hand. We get a glimpse, in passing, of the interior view with its white, pebbly floor, in which the basket starfish have possession—a fitting reception room for sea nymph or mermaid. Pillars of stone incrusted with barnacles and periwinkles rise all around, while long tendrils of sea ferns wave like banners around their base.
Our boatman tells us that we are about to pass from "The Garden of the Sea Gods" into "Hell's Half-Acre." What a change in a moment's time! A desert of rock tumbled in a heterogeneous mass, all shapes and sizes, as if thrown by some giant hand into grotesque and fantastic shapes. No wonder they gave it such a gruesome name.
In such a place one would expect to see the bleaching bones of sailors, lost at sea, or the broken and dismantled hulk of a galleon, half buried in the sand. A shadow crosses our vision, and slowly there comes to our sight a shark, that scavenger of the deep, a fitting spot for such as he to come upon the stage. Slowly he passes, turning partly on his side, showing the cruel mouth with rows of serrated teeth. His eyes look at us as if in anger at being cheated of his prey, then on he glides like a specter, and with a flirt of his tail as he waves us adieu, he passes out of sight. We breathe a sigh of thanksgiving that the boat is between us and this hideous, cruel monster, and another sigh of regret as our boat touches the wharf, to think that the trip is so soon ended. Truly, "those who go down into the sea in ships" have wonders revealed to them such as were never dreamed of in the mind of man.
Fog on the Bay
One could hardly find a more perfect morning than this in early March. The sun was heralded over the hills in a blaze of glory; meadow larks strung like beads on a telegraph wire were calling their cheery notes, and robins were singing their overture to the morning sun.
Boarding the Key Route train, I soon arrived at the Oakland mole, to find it crowded with a restless tide of humanity, waiting impatiently for the overdue boat. Each arriving train added to the congestion, until the building between the tracks and the gangway was crowded with anxious commuters.