When the noon sun casts its shadows
You may see his stony features
From the deck of ferry steamers
Near the pier that wades the shallows
On the harbor's eastern border,
Tamals call them Sacred Islands
Of the Albatross and Beaver,
For upon their backs were carried
All the Tamals through the deluge.

Down the ages came the legend,
Told by Fathers to the children,
Told on rainy winter evenings
Round the campfires of the Tamals.

From the ocean rolled the rain-clouds,
Came unceasingly the rain-clouds.
Black and heavy were the rain-clouds,
Lighted only by the flashes
Of the lightning playing in them.
Fell the rain as falls the torrents
In the waterfalls of rivers,
Fell through days of murky darkness,
Fell through nights of inky blackness,
Fell for days and nights unnumbered.
Waters covered plains and valleys.
On the coast the sea was rising,
Flooding all the lower country,
Creeping up the mountain foothills;
Still the rains in floods descended.