Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/43

Rh The fascination of looking and listening would keep us long spell-bound; but our escort, who understands the symptoms, politely compels us "to move on," and directly—very opportunely—we are confronted with the light-house keeper, who offers to show us his tower and light. Clambering up and up, at last we stand within the great lantern, with its intense reflections; and hear all about the life of its keeper—how he scours and polishes by day, and tends the burning oil by night. When we ask him if the storm-winds do not threaten his tower, he shakes his head and smiles, and says, it is an "eerie" place up there when the sou'westers are blowing. But, somehow, he likes it; he would not like to leave his place for another.

Then we climb a little higher, going out upon the iron balcony, where the keeper stands to do his outside polishing of the glass. The view is grand; but what charms us most, is a miniature landscape reflected in one of the facets of the lantern. It is a complete copy of the north-western shore of the cape, a hundred times more perfect and beautiful than a painter could make it, with the features of a score of rods concentrated into a picture of a dozen inches in diameter, with the real life, and motion, and atmosphere of Nature in it. While you gaze enchanted, the surf creeps up the sandy beach, the sea-birds circle about the rocks, the giant firs move gently in the breeze, shadows flit over the sea, a cloud moves in the sky; in short, it is the loveliest picture your eyes ever rested on.

The friendly keeper explains to you, as you turn to look up the coast, that the beach north of the cape extends, in one unbroken level, about twenty miles; and that it is a long, narrow neck, divided from the