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Show 162 WESTERN WILDS. light, fleecy clouds, and shines out with some fervor, and by 10 A. M., I take off my overcoat, for a mild summer has set in. This continues with beautiful steadiness until 2 or 3 P. M. ; then the thermometer falls about five degrees very suddenly, as the afternoon fog comes rolling over the city. November continues from 4 till 7 P. M., at which time regular winter sets in. It is, in reality, only eight or ten degrees colder than at noon, but the change makes it seem to me like Decem-ber. I button tight my overcoat, slap my fingers vigorously, and ex-ercise till I get acclimated; then take a hearty dinner, and two cups of hot coffee, put on my muffler, and go out for an evening view of this most cosmopolitan of cities : first to the Chinese Theater, and then in turn to all the local oddities. The beauty of Sunday afternoon tempted us to accept the local cus-tom and use that day for an excursion to the Cliff House. It stands on the opposite, that is, the western side, of the peninsula, about four miles from the main part of the city. Whirling along through the sand- hills, on which I noted a plentiful supply of two old Utah acquaintances sagebrush and greasewood a sudden turn to the left gave a free outlook towards the West ; there I took my first view of the Pacific, and in a few minutes was upon the seaward porch of the Cliff House. The day was calm and almost cloudless; the sight westward free even to the meeting of sea and sky ; the blue vault, and the soft air of the Pacific, were over and around us ; to the right the Golden Gate opened into the bay ; while below us, and far down the coast, the white surf was breaking upon the shore, with that sublime music which has been the delight and the despair of poets since the poluphloisboio of Homer. The house stands upon a projecting rock, some forty feet above the waves, which beat incessantly upon the jagged points below, and at times even dash their light spray into the faces of those upon the seaward porch. Apparently a hundred yards out really three times as far stands the cluster of rocks which are the resort of the sea- lions. They were there in numbers, not playing in the waves as sometimes, but lying in groups upon the top of the rocks, their deep, hollow bark mingling with the roar of the surf. A lone rock, a little further out, is covered in the same way with gulls, visitors not being allowed to fire at either. Below the Cliff House a road, cut' into the rock and walled on the side next the ocean, leads down to a sandy beach below, where the hills recede from the shore. A long salt marsh, easily forded, is shut off from the ocean by a sand " spit," on which is a firm and |
