But Little Or
Nothing Of These Appear In General Views, Only A Simple Gray Wall
Nearly Straight, Green Along The Top, And The Forest Stretching Back
Into The Mountains As Far As The Eye Can Reach.
Going ashore, we find few long reaches of sand where one may saunter,
or meadows, save the brown and purple meadows of the sea, overgrown
with slippery kelp, swashed and swirled in the restless breakers.
The
abruptness of the shore allows the massive waves that have come from
far over the broad Pacific to get close to the bluffs ere they break,
and the thundering shock shakes the rocks to their foundations. No
calm comes to these shores. Even in the finest weather, when the
ships off shore are becalmed and their sails hang loose against the
mast, there is always a wreath of foam at the base of these bluffs.
The breakers are ever in bloom and crystal brine is ever in the air.
A scramble along the Oregon sea bluffs proves as richly exciting to
lovers of wild beauty as heart could wish. Here are three hundred
miles of pictures of rock and water in black and white, or gray and
white, with more or less of green and yellow, purple and blue. The
rocks, glistening in sunshine and foam, are never wholly dry - many of
them marvels of wave-sculpture and most imposing in bulk and bearing,
standing boldly forward, monuments of a thousand storms, types of
permanence, holding the homes and places of refuge of multitudes of
seafaring animals in their keeping, yet ever wasting away. How grand
the songs of the waves about them, every wave a fine, hearty storm in
itself, taking its rise on the breezy plains of the sea, perhaps
thousands of miles away, traveling with majestic, slow-heaving
deliberation, reaching the end of its journey, striking its blow,
bursting into a mass of white and pink bloom, then falling spent and
withered to give place to the next in the endless procession, thus
keeping up the glorious show and glorious song through all times and
seasons forever!
Terribly impressive as is this cliff and wave scenery when the skies
are bright and kindly sunshine makes rainbows in the spray, it is
doubly so in dark, stormy nights, when, crouching in some hollow on
the top of some jutting headland, we may gaze and listen undisturbed
in the heart of it. Perhaps now and then we may dimly see the tops of
the highest breakers, looking ghostly in the gloom; but when the water
happens to be phosphorescent, as it oftentimes is, then both the sea
and the rocks are visible, and the wild, exulting, up-dashing spray
burns, every particle of it, and is combined into one glowing mass of
white fire; while back in the woods and along the bluffs and crags of
the shore the storm wind roars, and the rain-floods, gathering
strength and coming from far and near, rush wildly down every gulch to
the sea, as if eager to join the waves in their grand, savage harmony;
deep calling unto deep in the heart of the great, dark night, making a
sight and a song unspeakable sublime and glorious.
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