174 THE TOURIST'S CALIFORNIA bed, the height of the mountains which rise grandly from its shore, influence this lustrous sheet of sil- ver-blue, green-blue, royal-blue hues. Its azure carpet, bordered by peaks nine to eleven thousand feet high, is spread more than a mile above sea before the doors of numerous allur- ing inns and piney camps, whose guests hunt, fish, ride, motor, swim, row, climb, make trips to other mountain-rimmed lakes, play tennis and bowls, dance, spin tales about evening camp-fires, and grow ruddy in the Tahoe air. The rustic Tavern is as perfect as thought can make it. Many come here who are content merely to watch between its verandah posts the changing lunettes of lake and mountains grey in the morning, clear white and blue in the revealing noon, flaring with the shades of fire at the sunset, wrapped at twilight in veils of dusk through which they drift into darkness, pricked by a thousand lights of cheer. The steamer is a swift steel craft that carries us past meadows and beaches and bluff prows to the resorts on the west shore, to Emerald Bay and to the exclusive Hotel Tallac. A road runs inland to Fallen Leaf Lake, the loveliest gem in the neck- lace of waters about Tahoe. Mt. Tallac (9700 ft.) sweeps abruptly from its edge. The way to the top is just rough enough to give zest to a tramping trip. Horses are for hire at the Hotel Tallac.
