Almadía

Mist lies on the river at first light, and the whole timber town smells of resin and wet sawdust. Log houses climb the slope above the water. Their steep roofs are shingled in silver-grey wood, and their gable boards are carved with stars and twisting vines. Woodpiles stand against every wall, stacked right up to the eaves. Lower down, a water-driven sawmill straddles its mill-race, pale sawdust drifting in banks around stacks of sorted boards, and its smoke hangs flat over the rooftops. Along the shore runs the landing. It is a long timber quay where trunks lie bound into rafts with twisted withies, row upon row, dark with river water, beside a tall post notched at different heights by old floods. Above the rafts rises a great log hall with its gable end open to the current. Wet bark brown, fir green and river slate fill the scene, broken only by green and brown scarves knotted along a railing. Slick raft slips run down into the current. Beyond the last roofs, fir slopes close in on every side.