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Rezanov by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
page 127 of 289 (43%)
They stood out through the straits between Point
Tiburon and the Isle of the Angels, where the tide
ran fast. Then, for the first time, was Rezanov able
to form a definite idea of the size and shape of this
great natural harbor. To the south it extended be-
yond the peninsula in an unbroken sheet for some
forty English miles. Ten miles to the north there
was a gateway between the lower hills which Luis
had alluded to as leading into the bay of Saint
Pablo, another large body of tidewater, but inferior
in depth and beauty to the Bay of San Francisco.

The mist had dissolved. The greens were vivid
where the sun shone on island and hill. The woods
of Bellissima, the groves of Point Sausalito, the for-
ests in the northern canyons, deepened to purple like
that of the great bare sweep of Tamalpais. Only
the farther peaks remained a pale misty blue, and
were of an indescribable floating delicacy.

Concha pointed to the eastern double cone. "That
is Monte del Diablo. Once they say it spouted fire,
but that was long ago, and all our volcanoes are
dead. But perhaps not so long ago. The Indians
tell the strange story that their grandfathers remem-
bered when this bay was a valley covered with oak
trees, and the rivers of the north flowed through
and emptied into Lake Merced and a rift by the
Fort. Then came a tremendous earthquake and
rent the mountains apart where you came through
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