In Tamal Land

IN TAMAL LAND

OVERLOOKING THE FOG.

   An old gun, now rusty, lying beside its gun-carriage on the bluff, was the first fog signal established on the Pacific Coast by the government. In foggy weather it was discharged every hour and a half during day and night.
   When we contrast the present steam sirens, blowing five blasts every thirty-five seconds, with the former primitive means, we realize a little what scientists and inventors have been doing these fifty years.
   The genial keeper, who is a second cousin of the late Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, showed us every nook and cranny in the place, from the boilers, the lamp, and its appurtenances down to the neat store-rooms and paint lockers.
   Though I have visited many fog-stations before, this one surpassed all others in its perfect order and scrupulous cleanliness, reminding one of a well regulated ship. So exactly was every corner and space utilized, that, as Dickens once remarked of a steam-packet, "everything was something else than what it pretended to be."
   All the appliances of the Station are in duplicate. Thus, if one siren becomes disabled, another immediately takes its place; so with the boilers, etc.
   Retracing our steps to the mainland, we noted on the edge

IN TAMAL LAND

of the cliff near the keeper's dwelling the life-saving station whose crew do much effective work about these jagged-headlands. Bidding good-bye to the keeper, we turned our backs on Bonita and started homeward. We had been so engrossed with the Point and its environs as to be unconscious of the flight of time, and, noting with surprise the waning afternoon, we urged our horses to a brisk pace and sped rapidly along the elevated roadway.
The sun was slowly approaching the edge of the horizon, and Bonita, still visible in the West. stood out a silhouette

THE FIRST FOG SIGNAL.

against a brilliant sky. At its feet lay outstretched the gorgeously illoumined sea; some fleecy golden cloudlets, floating over the Gate, seemed a soft shower of petals from the State's fair emblem; while the mellow light of the departing day still rested lovingly on the loftiest hilltops, and over on the city side occasional windows reflected his glory, as with a spot of glistening gold. To the southward the blue misty tones of the Santa Cruz Mountains began to merge into their robes of approaching night.
Suddenly out upon the still air rang a deep boom! boom! Angel Island was rendering her last tribute to the god of day.

IN TAMAL LAND

ANGEL ISLAND.

Then there came to me those beautiful lines of our own poet, Lowell Otus Reese:

A touch of night on the hill-tops gray;
A dusky hush on the quivering Bay;
A calm moon mounting the silent East
White slave the day-god has released;
     Small, scattered clouds
        That seemed to wait
     Like sheets of fire
        O'er the Golden Gate.
And under Bonita, growing dim,
With a seeming pause on the ocean's rim,
Like a weary lab'rer, sinks the sun
To the booming crash of the sunset gun.

THE DEPARTING DAY.