Jade Cove

The rocks below carry Monterey jade. The Chinese called jade petrified dragon tears and believed its wearer was safe against all evil, and people have dived and picked it out of this cove for a century. You may still hunt the pebbles below the high-tide line, but take nothing above it.

That is the law now. This is the shore under Plaskett Ridge, and it is family coast in every sense. The abalone that fed this family off these rocks is mostly illegal to take now.

If you want to taste it, a vendor on the Monterey wharf raises it for sale, and the restaurants that serve it know how to make that tough muscle soft. The hills above are the Los Burros mining country, and the giant of it was Henry Melville, an Australian of incredible strength who located the Melville and Buffalo mines. He came home once to two men robbing his cabin and threw them out of it bodily, and they tell of him lifting a loaded wagon.

He had a habit of covering up a good prospect for later and obliterating every sign, so well that he could not always find it again himself.