And what can be more exquisite than the drive out from Clear Lake to Ukiah by way of the Blue Lakes chain!—­every turn bringing into view a picture of breathless beauty; every glance backward revealing some perfect composition in line and colour, the intense blue of the water margined with splendid oaks, green fields, and swaths of orange poppies.  But those side glances and backward glances were provocative of trouble.  Charmian and I disagreed as to which way the connecting stream of water ran.  We still disagree, for at the hotel, where we submitted the affair to arbitration, the hotel manager and the clerk likewise disagreed.  I assume, now, that we never will know which way that stream runs.  Charmian suggests “both ways.”  I refuse such a compromise.  No stream of water I ever saw could accomplish that feat at one and the same time.  The greatest concession I can make is that sometimes it may run one way and sometimes the other, and that in the meantime we should both consult an oculist.

More valley from Ukiah to Willits, and then we turned westward through the virgin Sherwood Forest of magnificent redwood, stopping at Alpine for the night and continuing on through Mendocino County to Fort Bragg and “salt water.”  We also came to Fort Bragg up the coast from Fort Ross, keeping our coast journey intact from the Golden Gate.  The coast weather was cool and delightful, the coast driving superb.  Especially in the Fort Ross section did we find the roads thrilling, while all the way along we followed the sea.  At every stream, the road skirted dizzy cliff-edges, dived down into lush growths of forest and ferns and climbed out along the cliff-edges again.  The way was lined with flowers—­wild lilac, wild roses, poppies, and lupins.  Such lupins!—­giant clumps of them, of every lupin-shade and—­colour.  And it was along the Mendocino roads that Charmian caused many delays by insisting on getting out to pick the wild blackberries, strawberries, and thimble-berries which grew so profusely.  And ever we caught peeps, far down, of steam schooners loading lumber in the rocky coves; ever we skirted the cliffs, day after day, crossing stretches of rolling farm lands and passing through thriving villages and saw-mill towns.  Memorable was our launch-trip from Mendocino City up Big River, where the steering gears of the launches work the reverse of anywhere else in the world; where we saw a stream of logs, of six to twelve and fifteen feet in diameter, which filled the river bed for miles to the obliteration of any sign of water; and where we were told of a white or albino redwood tree.  We did not see this last, so cannot vouch for it.