"
It was now the evening, near nightfall, and we had been so intent on
beating our awkward--looking opponent, that we had none of us time to
look at the splendid scene that burst upon our view, on rounding a
precipitous rock, from the crevices of which some magnificent trees shot
up--their gnarled trunks and twisted branches overhanging the canal
where we were pulling, and anticipating the fast--falling darkness that
was creeping over the fair face of nature; and there we floated, in the
deep shadow of the cliff and trees Dragonflies and Water Sprites,
motionless and silent, the boats floating so lightly that they scarcely
seemed to touch the water, the men resting on their oars, and all of us
rapt with the magnificence of the scenery around us, beneath us, and
above us.
The left or western bank of the narrow entrance to the harbour, from
which we were now debauching, ran out in all its precipitousness and
beauty, (with its dark evergreen bushes overshadowing the deep blue
waters, and its gigantic trees shooting forth high into the glowing
western sky, their topmost branches gold--tipped in the flood of
radiance shed by the rapidly sinking sun, while all below where we lay
was grey cold shade,) until it joined the northern shore, when it sloped
away gradually towards the east; the higher parts of the town sparkled
in the evening sun, on this dun ridge, like golden turrets on the back
of an elephant, while the houses that were in the shade covered the
declivity with their dark masses, until it sank down to the water's
edge.
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