the midday sun
The dawn breaks high behind the towering and serrated wall of the Cordillera , a clear-cut vision of dark peaks rearing their steep slopes on a lofty pedestal of forest rising from the very edge of the shore . Amongst them the white head of Higuerota rises majestically upon the blue . Bare clusters of enormous rocks sprinkle with tiny black dots the smooth dome of snow . Then , as the midday sun withdraws from the gulf the shadow of the mountains , the clouds begin to roll out of the lower valleys . They swathe in sombre tatters the naked crags of precipices above the wooded slopes , hide the peaks , smoke in stormy trails across the snows of Higuerota . The Cordillera is gone from you as if it had dissolved itself into great piles of grey and black vapours that travel out slowly to seaward and vanish into thin air all along the front before the blazing heat of the day . The wasting edge of the cloud-bank always strives for , but seldom wins , the middle of the gulf .