Page:A La California.djvu/103

Rh drying. When fully dried they are taken off the paper carefully, and cleaned with a soft brush to remove any mold or other blemishes, and are then ready for use in the preparation of moss-baskets, pictures, etc., etc. Nothing can be more beautiful than the work thus produced by ladies of taste, and no special teaching or experience is required to enable them to do it well. These mosses, when dried ready for use, readily command high prices at the East and in California, the demand being always large. There is also a "Shell Beach" in the vicinity of Pescadero, where beautiful sea-shells are gathered. The finest shell on the Pacific Coast is the great abalone (pron. "ab-a-lo-ne"), a mammoth univalve, which is found most abundantly and most perfect along the shores of the Bay of Monterey, and thence southwards to San Diego. The inside of the shell is rainbow-hued and very brilliant, and when the rough outside has been ground and polished away they make beautiful ornaments for the mantel and cabinet. Belt-buckles and other jewelry, which would be "perfectly lovely" if not so cheap and common, are made from these shells.

From Pescadero to Santa Cruz is thirty-six miles, by the road which winds along the coast past Point Año Nuevo and Pigeon Point to the Bay of Monterey, and thence southeastward, through a rich and highly-cultivated farming region, to the old Spanish Mission on the hill, below and around which the modern town, one of the most beautiful and thriving in California, has grown up within the past