and Oakland lay seventeen hundred feet below us, their twinkling
lights glowing through the darkness like fireflies. Out on San
Francisco Bay the lights flashed from the mastheads of ships at anchor
or from brightly lighted ferryboats plying from mole to mole, while
far to the left, Lake Merritt lay like a gray sheet amid the shadows.
In the middle distance off Yerba Buena Island two United States
gunboats were at anchor, one of them sending the rays of its powerful
searchlight here and there across the water, and making a veritable
path of silver far out across the bay.

Jack rabbits and cotton-tails scurried across our path and dodged into
thickets. An owl flapped lazily over our heads and sailed away down
the valley, evidently on his nocturnal hunting. But we had little time
or inclination to give to these mountain creatures, as we had to pay
strict attention to our footing.

The last descent proved to be the hardest, for the grade was as steep
as the roof of a house, but we finally succeeded in scrambling down,
and at last reached the grove surrounding the Greek Amphitheater; then
home, footsore and weary, but happy with our afternoon's outing on the
trout streams in the Berkeley Hills.




[Illustration]

On the Beach