Читать книгу Oregon, the Picturesque. A Book of Rambles in the Oregon Country and in the Wilds of Northern California онлайн

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After making the acquaintance of the friendly chipmunks about the inn—which have so far overcome their natural timidity as to take morsels from your fingers or even to rifle your pockets in search of peanuts—and laughing at the antics of the blue jays, almost as fearless, we decided to board the excursion steamer, which makes a daily round of the lake. Once out from the shore and well started on our southward journey, we began to realize something of the wonderful colorings that no one who has seen Tahoe can ever forget. About us the water was of the deepest, clearest, ultra-marine blue, shading by many gradations into emerald green near the shores. The colors were more intense than we had ever seen before in any body of water and cannot be entirely due to great depth, for though the bottom of Tahoe in places is nearly two thousand feet below the surface, the hue is deeper than that of the ocean. It is more like liquid, transparent lapis-lazuli, if we may imagine such a thing, than anything else I can think of. No doubt the depth of the water and the deep azure of the skies are the chief elements in producing this glorious effect. Yet, for all its blueness, we could see the bottom of the lake as we steamed along—indeed, they told us that only in the deepest places is the bottom invisible on clear, still days.