As we arrived our noses were greeted with a most stupendous and enwrapping stench. It took me just about the twentieth part of a second to realize that the black objects that lay above the tide mark were the half-dismembered bodies of sea-lions, the intestines protruding black and decayed upon the smeared and oily sand. Round about them were tramplings and churnings of the mud, and spreading away across the landward rubble to the entrance of the ravine were great sloppy paddings—the slow trudge of some ponderous and long-nailed quadruped.

It was almost with gratified expectation that I recognized the trail of the Horror of the cañon. Here doubtless was his feeding-ground, his private abattoir, where he came down to prey upon the sleeping sea-lion, even as centuries before he had lumbered down upon Alfa, Hardal, and probably many another of those hapless immigrants besides. Here as in a trap he found his prey. Often one could suppose the sea-lions passed through the sea entrance at the far end of the bay, failed to find exit, and, tired with wearily threshing round their prison walls, landed to take their siesta in the sun. Here asleep they fell unawares into his maw, or, surprised in the rock-ringed pool, gave him many a jovial hunt in the clear depths between the cliffs.[1]

[...]

1. Lord Heatherslie makes a mistake here. Professor Lessaution’s subsequent researches proved “the god Cay” to be without doubt Brontosaurus excelsus, remains of which have been found in the Jurassic formation of Colorado. It was purely a land animal.—F.S.

Chapter XIV, pages 215-216