CHAPTER VII.
TAMALPAIS.
Where it is Situated.—Some Speculation as to the Signification of the name and its Possible Origin.—Our Start for the Mountains.—The Trip to San Rafael and Adventures by the Way.—Ascending the Mountain.—First Blood.—The View of the Bay and City of San Francisco.—Mount Diablo puts in an Appearance.—At the Summit.—A Bear-faced Fraud.—Fine Study of a Fog-Bank.—A Faithless Guide.—Wandering in the Mist.—Out of the Woods.—An Afternoon's Sport.—A Painful Subject.—Adios, Tamalpais.
There is not a finer mountain for its height,—two thousand six hundred feet,—on all the continent of America, than Tamalpais, the bold abutment of the Coast Range on the northern side of the Golden Gate, a low spur of which runs down into the Pacific Ocean and forms Point Bonita (Beautiful Point), on which stands the lighthouse which guides the mariner into the entrance of the Bay and Harbor of San Francisco. The origin and signification of the name are matters of doubt. Mal pais is a common designation for rocky barren ground, in all Spanish-American countries, and Ta-mal-pais may be a corruption of that term, the unnecessary primary syllable having perhaps been engrafted upon it by the Indians or Russians after the Spanish settlement of the country. Another suggestion—a very hazardous one—as to its origin is as follows. There is a dish, toothsome,
