THE WOODS AND THE PACIFIC


THE Bay of Monterey has been compared by no less a person than
General Sherman to a bent fishing-hook; and the comparison, if less
important than the march through Georgia, still shows the eye of a
soldier for topography. Santa Cruz sits exposed at the shank; the
mouth of the Salinas river is at the middle of the bend; and
Monterey itself is cosily ensconced beside the barb. Thus the
ancient capital of California faces across the bay, while the
Pacific Ocean, though hidden by low hills and forest, bombards her
left flank and rear with never-dying surf. In front of the town,
the long line of sea-beach trends north and north-west, and then
westward to enclose the bay. The waves which lap so quietly about
the jetties of Monterey grow louder and larger in the distance; you
can see the breakers leaping high and white by day; at night, the
outline of the shore is traced in transparent silver by the
moonlight and the flying foam; and from all round, even in quiet
weather, the distant, thrilling roar of the Pacific hangs over the
coast and the adjacent country like smoke above a battle.

These long beaches are enticing to the idle man. It would be hard
to find a walk more solitary and at the same time more exciting to
the mind. Crowds of ducks and sea-gulls hover over the sea.
Sandpipers trot in and out by troops after the retiring waves,
trilling together in a chorus of infinitesimal song. Strange sea-
tangles, new to the European eye, the bones of whales, or sometimes
a whole whale's carcase, white with carrion-gulls and poisoning the