one survivor of her people--
Sat and listened to the patter
Of the raindrops on the shingles,
To the soughing of the west-wind
In the branches of the redwoods.
Long she gazed upon the harbor,
Lying leaden-gray below us.
Then, she told this ancient legend--
Legend of her tribe, the Tamals,
Legend of an ancient deluge.

"Do you see," she said, "the Islands
Of the Albatross and Beaver?
By another name you call them.
One is crested by a prison,
Grim and somber, melancholy;
One is gay with flags and bunting,
Ringing with the martial music
Of your sailor boys in training;
Yet, if you observe them closely,
You will see in one the profile
Of an Albatross, a giant
Sea bird, sleeping on the water;
While the other is a Beaver
Facing always to the eastward.
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.

Up the slopes of Tamalpais
Climbed the people of the Tamals,
While behind them crept the waters,
Covering the hills and mountains.
One by one the peaks were swallowed
In the flood of rising waters.
On the gray and sullen waters
Floated logs and trees uprooted;
On the trunks and in the branches
Cowered creatures of the forests,
Then the people prayed the Spirit--
Prayed the Father in the Heavens--
T