Near him stood his aides. All of them were travel-stained, careworn with
hardship and fatigue. Following their chieftain they uncovered and
knelt. To one side and a little below the apex of a rocky promontory
that contained the little group, Christian Indians, muleteers and
soldados crossed themselves and looked up questioningly. In a dozen
litters sick men tossed and moaned. A mule brayed raucously, startling
flocks of wild geese to flight from nearby cliffs, a herd of deer on a
mad stampede inland.
Portola rose and swept the horizon with his half-fevered gaze. To the
south lay the rugged shore line with its sea-corroded cliffs, indented
at one point into a half-moon of glistening beach and sweeping on again
into vanishing and reappearing shapes of mist.
Far to the northwest a giant arm of land reached out into the water,
high and stark and rocky; further on a group of white farallones lay in
the tossing foam and over them great flocks of seabirds dipped and
circled. Finally, along the coast to the northward, they descried those
chalk cliffs which Francis Drake had aptly named New Albion, and still
beyond, what seemed to be the mouth of an inlet.
Dispute sprang up among them.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25