272 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
cultivation, prolonged the mystery, and the 
glimpses of white villages scarcely seemed to 
break the spell. Point after point we passed, 
— great shoulders of volcanic mountain thrust 
out to meet the sea, with steep green ravines 
furrowed in between them; and when at last 
we rounded the Espalamarca, and the white 
walls and the Moorish towers of Horta stood 
revealed before us, and a stray sunbeam pierced 
the clouds on the great mountain Pico across 
the bay, and the Spanish steamship in the har- 
bor flung out her gorgeous ensign of gold and 
blood, — then, indeed, we felt that all the glow- 
ing cup of the tropics was proffered to our lips, 
and the dream of our voyage stood fulfilled. 
Not one of our immediate party, most hap- 
pily, had ever been beyond Boston harbor be- 
fore, and so we all plunged without fear or 
apology into the delicious sense of foreignness ; 
we moved as those in dreams. No one could 
ever precisely remember what we said or what 
we did, only that we were somehow boated 
ashore till we landed with difficulty through 
high surf on a wave-worn quay, amid an enthu- 
siastic throng of women in dark blue hooded 
cloaks which we all took for priestly vestments, 
and of beggars in a combination of patches 
which no sane person could reasonably take for 
vestments of any sort, until one saw how scru- 
