back the sun's fierceness with its light shield; and even the
eye was bid to rest, the distant landscape was so hidden under
the same blue.

No distant landscape was to be seen, until they had rowed for
several minutes. Winthrop had turned to the north and was
coasting the promontory edge, which in that direction
stretched along for more than a quarter of a mile. It
stretched west as well as north, and the river's course beyond
it was in a north-easterly line; so that keeping close under
the shore as they were, the up view could not be had till the
point was turned. First they passed the rock-bound shore which
fenced in the home valley; then for a space the rocks and the
heights fell back and several acres of arable ground edged the
river, cut in two by a small belt of woods. These acres were
not used except for grazing cattle; the first field was
occupied with a grove of cylindrical cedars; in the second a
soft growth of young pines sloped up towards the height; the
ground there rising fast to a very bluff and precipitous range
which ended the promontory, and pushed the river boldly into a
curve, as abrupt almost as the one it took in an opposite
direction a quarter of a mile below. Here the shore was bold
and beautiful. The sheer rock sprang up two hundred feet from
the very bosom of the river, a smooth perpendicular wall;
sometimes broken with a fissure and an out-jutting ledge, in
other parts only roughened with lichens; then breaking away
into a more irregular and wood-lined shore; but with this
variety keeping its bold front to the river for many an oar's
length. Probably as bold and more deep below the surface, for
in this place was the strength of the channel. The down tides