gh a low white cloud
upon a distant slope there might have been a great globe of iridescent
glass illuminated within. The water was a light, soft, filmy yet
translucent blue. Concha gazed with parted lips.

"I never knew before how wonderful it was," she murmured. "I have been
taught to believe that only the south is beautiful, and when we had to
come here again from Santa Barbara it was exile. But now I am glad I
was born in the north."

"I have watched the light on these hills and islands, and what I could
see of the fine lines of the mountains ever since I came, and were
there but villas and castles, these waters would be far more beautiful
than the Lake of Como or the Bay of Naples. But I am glad to see trees
again. From our anchorage I had but a bare glimpse of two or three.
They seem to hide from the western winds. Are they so strong, then?"

"We have terrible winds, senor. I do not wonder the trees crouch to
the east. But I must tell you our names." She pointed to the largest
of the islands, a great bare mass that looked as had it been, when
viscid, flung out in long folds from a central peak, concaving here and
there with its own weight. Its southern point was on a line with a
point of mainland far to the west, and its northern, from their vantage
looking to be but a continuation of the curve of the mainland, finished
an arc of almost perfect proportions, whose deep curve was a tumbled
mass of hills and one great mountain. "That is Nuestra Senora de los
Angeles, and it opens a triple jaw, Luis has told me, at Point
Tiburon--you will soon see the straits between. The big rock over
there is Alcatraz, and farther away still is Yerba Buena--that looks
like a camel on its knees."

But Rezanov was examining the scene before him. The lines of this bay
within a bay were superb, and in its wide embrace, slanting from Point
Tiburon toward an inner point two miles opposite was another island, as
steep as Alcatraz, but long and waving of outline, with a glimpse of
trees on its crest. Rezanov, while he lost nothing of the picturesque
beauty surrounding him, was more deeply interested in noting the many
foundations, sheltered and solid, for fortifications that would hold
these rich lands against the fleets of the world. Never had he seen so
many strategic advantages on one sheet of water. The islands farther
south he had examined through his glass from the deck of the Juno until
he knew every convolution they