but a little way from the city of the Golden Gates, already, at
that hour, beginning to awake among the sand-hills. It called to
us over the waters as with the voice of a bird. Its stately head,
blue as a sapphire on the paler azure of the sky, spoke to us of
wider outlooks and the bright Pacific. For Tamalpais stands
sentry, like a lighthouse, over the Golden Gates, between the bay
and the open ocean, and looks down indifferently on both. Even as
we saw and hailed it from Vallejo, seamen, far out at sea, were
scanning it with shaded eyes; and, as if to answer to the thought,
one of the great ships below began silently to clothe herself with
white sails, homeward bound for England.

For some way beyond Vallejo the railway led us through bald green
pastures. On the west the rough highlands of Marin shut off the
ocean; in the midst, in long, straggling, gleaming arms, the bay
died out among the grass; there were few trees and few enclosures;
the sun shone wide over open uplands, the displumed hills stood
clear against the sky. But by-and-by these hills began to draw
nearer on either hand, and first thicket and then wood began to
clothe their sides; and soon we were away from all signs of the
sea's neighbourhood, mounting an inland, irrigated valley. A great
variety of oaks stood, now severally, now in a becoming grove,
among the fields and vineyards. The towns were compact, in about
equal proportions, of bright, new wooden houses and great and
growing forest trees; and the chapel bell on the engine sounded
most festally that sunny Sunday, as we drew up at one green town
after another, with the townsfolk trooping in their Sunday's best
to see the strangers, with the sun sparkling on the clean houses,
and great domes of foliage humming overhead in the breeze.