CHAPTER IV.
PESCADERO TO SANTA CRUZ.
Down the Coast toward Santa Cruz.—The Moss and Shell Beaches of Pescadero.—A Disgusted Hunter.—A Grizzly Bear Procession.—A Mutual Surprise and Double Stampede.—The Bear Fever.—The Buck Fever and Prairie-Hen Fever.—How Jim Wheeler Killed the Buck.—How Old S. killed Three at one Shot. A Spanish-American Gentleman of Scientific Attainments and Undoubted Veracity.—View of the Bay of Monterey and the Valley and Mountains of Santa Cruz.
Pescadero numbers among its attractions a "Moss Beach," where the ladies who visit the place go to gather the beautiful, delicate, many-hued sea-mosses which are found in such abundance all along the Pacific Coast, but in highest perfection on the shores of Central California. These mosses are torn loose by the storms, and thrown ashore by the tides in great abundance in some localities, this "Moss Beach" being one of them. The ladies gather them at low tide, strip them from the glutinous, leather-like substance to which they are found adhering, and place them in salt water, to be kept fresh until they are ready to dry them. The delicate sprays, with fibers finer than any silk, are with infinite labor spread out with pliers, or other small instruments, upon the open leaves of an old ledger or other book of hard paper, and pressed carefully while
