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June 8. The sheep, now grassy
and good-natured, slowly nibbled their way down into the valley of the North
Fork of the Merced at the foot of Pilot Peak Ridge to the place selected by
the Don for our first central camp, a picturesque hopper-shaped hollow
formed by converging hill slopes at a bend of the river. Here racks for
dishes and provisions were made in the shade of the river-bank trees, and
beds of fern fronds, cedar plumes, and various flowers, each to the taste of
its owner, and a corral back on the open flat for the wool.
June 9. How deep our sleep
last night in the mountain's heart, beneath the trees and stars, hushed by
solemn-sounding waterfalls and many small soothing voices in sweet accord
whispering peace! And our first pure mountain day, warm, calm, cloudless,
—how immeasurable it seems, how serenely wild! I can scarcely remember its
beginning. Along the river, over the hills, in the ground, in the sky,
spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm, new life, new beauty,
unfolding, unrolling in glorious exuberant extravagance, — new birds in
their nests, new winged creatures in the air, and new leaves, new flowers,
spreading, shining, rejoicing everywhere.
The trees about the camp
stand close, giving ample shade for ferns and lilies, while back from the
bank most of the sunshine reaches the ground, calling up the grasses and
flowers in glorious array, tall bromus waving like bamboos, starry
composite, monardella, Mariposa tulips, lupines, gilias, violets, glad
children of light. Soon every fern frond will be unrolled, great beds of
common pteris and woodwardia along the river, wreaths and rosettes of pellma
and cheilanthes on sunny rocks. Some of the woodwardia fronds are already
six feet high.
A handsome little shrub,
Chamoebatia foliolosa, belonging to the rose family, spreads a yellow-green
mantle beneath the sugar pines for miles without a break, not mixed or
roughened with other plants. Only here and there a Washington lily may be
seen nodding above its even surface, or a bunch or two of tall bromus as if
for ornament. This fine carpet shrub begins to appear at, say, twenty-five
hundred or three thousand feet above sea level, is about knee high or less,
has brown branches, and the largest stems are only about half an inch in
diameter. The leaves, light yellow green, thrice pinnate and finely cut,
give them a rich ferny appearance, and they are dotted with minute glands
that secrete wax with a peculiar pleasant odor that blends finely with the
spicy fragrance of the pines. The flowers are white, five eighths of an inch
in diameter, and look like those of the strawberry. Am delighted with this
little bush. It is the only true carpet shrub of this part of the Sierra.
The manzanita, rhamnus, and most of the species of ceanothus make shaggy
rugs and border fringes rather than carpets or mantles.
The sheep do not take kindly
to their new pastures, perhaps from being too closely hemmed in by the
hills. They are never fully at rest. Last night they were frightened,
probably by bears or coyotes prowling and planning for a share of the grand
mass of mutton.
June 10. Very warm. We get
water for the camp from a rock basin at the foot of a picturesque cascading
reach of the river where it is well stirred and made lively without being
beaten into dusty foam. The rock here is black metamorphic slate, worn into
smooth knobs in the stream channels, contrasting with the fine gray and
white cascading water as it glides and glances and falls in lace-like sheets
and braided overfolding currents. Tufts of sedge growing on the rock knobs
that rise above the surface produce a charming effect, the long elastic
leaves arching over in every direction, the tips of the longest drooping
into the current, which dividing against the projecting rocks makes still
finer lines, uniting with the sedges to see how beautiful the happy stream
can be made. Nor is this all, for the giant saxifrage also is growing on
some of the knob rock islets, firmly anchored and displaying their broad,
round, umbrella-like leaves in showy groups by themselves, or above the
sedge tufts. The flowers of this species (Saxifrage peltata) are purple, and
form tall glandular racemes that are in bloom before the appearance of the
leaves. The fleshy root-stocks grip the rock in cracks and hollows, and thus
enable the plant to hold on against occasional floods, — a marked species
employed by Nature to make yet more beautiful the most interesting portions
of these cool clear streams. Near camp the trees arch over from bank to
bank,making a leafy tunnel full of soft subdued light, through which the
young river sings and shines like a happy living creature.
Heard a few peals of thunder
from the upper Sierra, and saw firm white bossy cumuli rising back of the
pines. This was about noon.
June 11. On one of the
eastern branches of the river discovered some charming cascades with a pool
at the foot of each of them. White dashing water, a few bushes and tufts of
carex on ledges leaning over with fine effect, and large orange lilies
assembled in superb groups on fertile soil-beds beside the pools.
There are no large meadows or
grassy plains near camp to supply lasting pasture for our thousands of busy
nibblers. The main dependence is ceanothus brush on the hills and tufted
grass patches here and there, with lupines and pea-vines among the flowers
on sunny open spaces. Large areas have already been stripped bare, or nearly
so, compelling the poor .hungry wool bundles to scatter far and wide,
keeping the shepherds and dogs at the top of their speed to hold them within
bounds. Mr. Delaney has gone back to the plains, taking the Indian and
Chinaman with him, leaving instruction to keep the flock here or hereabouts
until his return, which he promised would not be long delayed.
How fine the weather is!
Nothing more celestial can I conceive. How gently the winds blow! Scarce can
these tranquil air-currents be called winds. They seem the very breath of
Nature, whispering peace to every living thing. Down in the camp dell there
is no swaying of tree-tops; most of the time not a leaf moves. I don't
remember having seen a single lily swinging on its stalk, though they are so
tall the least breeze would rock them. What grand bells these lilies have!
Some of them big enough for children's bonnets. I have been sketching them,
and would fain draw every leaf of their wide shining whorls and every curved
and spotted petal. ' More beautiful, better kept gardens cannot be imagined.
The species is Lilium pardalinum, five to six feet high, leaf-whorls a foot
wide, flowers about six inches wide, bright orange, purple spotted in the
throat, segments revolute — a majestic plant.
June 12. A slight sprinkle of
rain — large drops far apart, falling with hearty pat and plash on leaves
and stones and into the mouths of the flowers. Cumuli rising to the
eastward. How beautiful their pearly bosses! How well they harmonize with
the upswelling rocks beneath them. Mountains of the sky, solid-looking,
finely sculptured, their richly varied topography wonderfully defined. Never
before have I seen clouds so substantial looking in form and texture. Nearly
every day toward noon they rise with visible swelling motion as if new
worlds were being created. And how fondly they brood and hover over the
gardens and forests with their cooling shadows and showers, keeping every
petal and leaf in glad health and heart. One may fancy the clouds themselves
are plants, springing up in the sky-fields at the call of the sun, growing
in beauty until they reach their prime, scattering rain and hail like
berries and seeds, then wilting and dying.
The mountain live oak, common
here and a thousand feet or so higher, is like the live oak of Florida, not
only in general appearance, foliage, bark, and wide-branching habit, but in
its tough, knotty, unwedgeable wood. Standing alone with plenty of elbow
room, the largest trees are about seven to eight feet in diameter near the
ground, sixty feet high, and as wide or wider across the head. The leaves
are small and undivided, mostly without teeth or wavy edging, though on
young shoots some are sharply serrated, both kinds being found on the same
tree. The cups of the medium-sized acorns are shallow, thick walled, and
covered with a golden dust of minute hairs. Some of the trees have hardly
any main trunk, dividing near the ground into large wide-spreading limbs,
and these, dividing again and again, terminate in long, drooping, cord-like
branch-lets, many of which reach nearly to the ground, while a dense canopy
of short, shining, leafy branchlets forms a round head which looks something
like a cumulus cloud when the sunshine is pouring over it.
A marked plant is the bush
poppy (Dendromecon rigidum), found on the hot hillsides near camp, the only
woody member of the order I have yet met in all my walks. Its flowers are .
bright orange yellow, an inch to two inches wide, fruit-pods three or four
inches long, slender and curving, — height of bushes about four feet, made
up of many slim, straight branches, radiating from the root, — a companion
of the manzanita and other sun-loving chaparral shrubs.
June 13. Another glorious
Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved•and absorbed and sent pulsing
onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no
more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is
true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality. Yonder rises another
white skyland. How sharply the yellow pine spires and the palm-like crowns
of the sugar pines are outlined on its smooth white domes. And hark! the
grand thunder billows booming, rolling from ridge to ridge, followed by the
faithful shower.
A good many herbaceous plants
come thus far up the mountains from the plains, and are now in flower, two
months later than their lowland relatives. Saw a few columbines to-day. Most
of the ferns are in their prime, — rock ferns on the sunny hillsides,
cheilanthes, pellma, gymnogramme; woodwardia, aspidium, woodsia along the
stream banks, and the common Pteris aquilina on sandy flats. This last,
however common, is here making shows of strong, exuberant, abounding beauty
to set the botanist wild with admiration. I measured some scarce full grown
that are more than seven feet high. Though the commonest and most widely
distributed of all the ferns, I might almost say that I never saw it before.
The broad-shouldered fronds held high on smooth stout stalks growing close
together, overleaping and overlapping, make a complete ceiling, beneath
which one may walk erect over several acres without being seen, as if
beneath a roof. And how soft and lovely the light streaming through this
living ceiling, revealing the arching branching ribs and veins of the fronds
as the framework of countless panes of pale green and yellow plant-glass
nicely fitted together — a fairyland created out of the commonest
fern-stuff.
The smaller animals wander
about as if in a tropical forest. I saw the entire flock of sheep vanish at
one side of a patch and reappear a hundred yards farther on at the other,
their progress betrayed only by the jerking and trembling of the fronds; and
strange to say very few of the stout woody stalks were broken. I sat a long
time beneath the tallest fronds, and never enjoyed anything in the way of a
bower of wild leaves more strangely impressive. Only spread a fern frond
over a man's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and
peace come in. The waving of a pine tree on the top of a mountain, — a magic
wand in Nature's hand, — every devout mountaineer knows its power; but the
marvelous beauty value of what the Scotch call a breckan in a still dell,
what poet has sung this? It would seem impossible that any one, however
incrusted with care, could escape the Godful influence of these sacred fern
forests. Yet this very day I saw a shepherd pass through one of the finest
of them without betraying more feeling than his sheep. "What do you think of
these grand ferns?" I asked. "Oh, they're only d--d big brakes," he replied.
Lizards of every temper,
style, and color dwell here, seemingly as happy and companionable as the
birds and squirrels. Lowly, gentle fellow mortals, enjoying God's sunshine,
and doing the best they can in getting a living, I like to watch them at
their work and play. They bear acquaintance well, and one likes them the
better the longer one looks into their beautiful, innocent eyes. They are
easily tamed, and one soon learns to love them, as they dart about on the
hot rocks, swift as dragon-flies. The eye can hardly follow them; but they
never make long-sustained runs, usually only about ten or twelve feet, then
a sudden stop, and as sudden a start again; going all their journeys by
quick, jerking impulses. These many stops I find are necessary as rests, for
they are short-winded, and when pursued steadily are soon out of breath,
pant pitifully, and are easily caught. Their bodies are more than half tail,
but these tails are well managed, never heavily dragged nor curved up as if
hard to carry; on the contrary, they seem to follow the body lightly of
their own will. Some are colored like the sky, bright as bluebirds, others
gray like the lichened rocks on which they hunt and bask. Even the horned
toad of the plains is a mild, harmless creature, and so are the snake-like
species which glide in curves with true snake motion, while their small,
undeveloped limbs drag as useless appendages. One specimen fourteen inches
long which I observed closely made no use whatever of its tender, sprouting
limbs, but glided with all the soft, sly ease and grace of a snake. Here
comes a little, gray, dusty fellow who seems to know and trust me, running
about my feet, and looking up cunningly into my face. Carlo is watching,
makes a quick pounce on him, for the fun of the thing I suppose; but Liz has
shot away from his paws like an arrow, and is safe in the recesses of a
clump of chaparral. Gentle saurians, dragons, descendants of an ancient and
mighty race, Heaven bless you all and make your virtues known! for few of us
know as yet that scales may cover fellow creatures as gentle and lovable as
feathers, or hair, or cloth.
Mastodons and elephants used
to live here no great geological time ago, as shown by their bones, often
discovered by miners in washing gold-gravel. And bears of at least two
species are here now, besides the California lion or panther, and wild cats,
wolves, foxes, snakes, scorpions, wasps, tarantulas; but one is almost
tempted at times to regard a small savage black ant as the master existence
of this vast mountain world. These fearless, restless, wandering imps,
though only about a quarter of an inch long, are fonder of fighting and
biting than any beast I know. They attack every living thing around their
homes, often without cause as far as I can see. Their bodies are mostly jaws
curved like ice-hooks, and to get work for these weapons seems to be their
chief aim and pleasure. Most of their colonies are established in living
oaks somewhat decayed or hollowed, in which they can conveniently build
their cells. These are chosen probably because of their strength as opposed
to the attacks of animals and storms. They work both day and night, creep
into dark caves, climb the highest trees, wander and hunt through cool
ravines as well as on hot, unshaded ridges, and extend their highways and
byways over everything but water and sky. From the foothills to a mile above
the level of the sea nothing can stir without their knowledge; and alarms
are spread in an incredibly short time, without any howl or cry that we can
hear. I can't understand the need of their ferocious courage; there seems to
be no common sense in it. Sometimes, no doubt, they fight in defense of
their homes, but they fight anywhere and always wherever they can find
anything to bite. As soon as a vulnerable spot is discovered on man or
beast, they stand on their heads and sink their jaws, and though torn limb
from limb, they will yet hold on and die biting deeper. When I contemplate
this fierce creature so widely distributed and strongly intrenched, I see
that much remains to be done ere the world is brought under the rule of
universal peace and love.
On my way to camp a few
minutes ago, I passed a dead pine nearly ten feet in diameter. It has been
enveloped in fire from top to bottom so that now it looks like a grand black
pillar set up as a monument. In this noble shaft a colony of large jet-black
ants have established themselves, laboriously cutting tunnels and cells
through the wood, whether sound or decayed. The entire trunk seems to have
been honeycombed, judging by the size of the talus of gnawed chips like
sawdust piled up around its base. They are more intelligent looking than
their small, belligerent, strong-scented brethren, and have better manners,
though quick to fight when required. Their towns are carved in fallen trunks
as well as in those left standing, but never in sound, living trees or in
the ground. When you happen to sit down to rest or take notes near a colony,
some wandering hunter is sure to find you and come cautiously forward to
discover the nature of the intruder and what ought to be done. If you are
not too near the town and keep perfectly still he may run across your feet a
few times, over your legs and hands and face, up your trousers, as if taking
your measure and getting comprehensive views, then go in peace without
raising an alarm. If, however, a tempting spot is offered or some suspicious
movement excites him, a bite follows, and such a bite! I fancy that a bear
or wolf bite is not to be compared with it. A quick electric flame of pain
flashes along the outraged nerves, and you discover for the first time how
great is the capacity for sensation you are possessed of. A shriek, a grab
for the animal, and a bewildered stare follow this bite of bites as one
comes back to consciousness from sudden eclipse. Fortunately, if careful,
one need not be bitten oftener than once or twice in a lifetime. This
wonderful electric species is about three fourths of an inch long. Bears are
fond of them, and tear and gnaw their home-logs to pieces, and roughly
devour the eggs, larvae, parent ants, and the rotten or sound wood of the
cells, all in one spicy acid hash. The Digger Indians also are fond of the
larva and even of the perfect ants, so I have been told by old mountaineers.
They bite off and reject the head, and eat the tickly acid body with keen
relish. Thus are the poor biters bitten, like every other biter, big or
little, in the world's great family.
There is also a fine, active,
intelligent-looking red species, intermediate in size between the above.
They dwell in the ground, and build large piles of seed husks, leaves,
straw, etc., over their nests. Their food seems to be mostly insects and
plant leaves, seeds and sap. How many mouths Nature has to fill, how many
neighbors we have, how little we know about them, and how seldom we get in
each other's way! Then to think of the infinite numbers of smaller fellow
mortals, invisibly small, compared with which the smallest ants are as
mastodons.
June 14. The pool-basins
below the falls and cascades hereabouts, formed by the heavy down-plunging
currents, are kept nicely clean grid clear of detritus. The heavier parts of
the material swept over the falls are heaped up a short distance in front of
the basins in the form of a dam, thus tending, together with erosion, to
increase their size. Sudden changes, however, are effected during the spring
floods, when the snow is melting and the upper tributaries are roaring loud
from "bank to brae." Then boulders that have fallen into the channels, and
which the ordinary summer and winter currents were unable to move, are
suddenly swept forward as by a mighty besom, hurled over the falls into
these pools, and piled up in a new dam together with part of the old one,
while some of the smaller boulders are carried farther down stream and
variously lodged according to size and shape, all seeking rest where the
force of the current is less than the resistance they are able to offer. But
the greatest changes made in these relations of fall, pool, and dam are
caused, not by the ordinary spring floods, but by extraordinary ones that
occur at irregular intervals. The testimony of trees growing on flood
boulder deposits shows that a century or more has passed since the last
master flood came to awaken everything movable to go swirling and dancing on
wonderful journeys. These floods may occur during the summer, when heavy
thunder-showers, called "cloud-bursts," fall on wide, steeply inclined
stream basins furrowed by converging channels, which suddenly gather the
waters together into the main trunk in booming torrents of enormous
transporting power, though short lived.
One of these ancient flood
boulders stands firm in the middle of the stream channel, just below the
lower edge of the pool dam at the foot of the fall nearest our camp. It is a
nearly cubical mass of granite about eight feet high, plushed with mosses
over the top and down the sides to ordinary high-water mark. When I climbed
on top of it to-day and lay down to rest, it seemed the most romantic spot I
had yet found — the one big stone with its mossy level top and smooth sides
standing square and firm and solitary, like an altar, the fall in front of
it bathing it lightly with the finest of the spray, just enough to keep its
moss cover fresh; the clear green pool beneath, with its foam-bells and its
half circle of lilies leaning forward like a band of admirers, and flowering
dogwood and alder trees leaning over all in sun-sifted arches. How
soothingly, restfully cool it is beneath that leafy, translucent ceiling,
and how delightful the water music — the deep bass tones of the fall, the
clashing, ringing spray, and infinite variety of small low tones of the
current gliding past the side of the boulder-island, and glinting against a
thousand smaller stones down the ferny channel! All this shut in; every one
of these influences acting at short range as if in a quiet room. The place
seemed holy, where one might hope to see God.
After dark, when the camp was
at rest, I groped my way back to the altar boulder and passed the night on
it, — above the water, beneath the leaves and stars, — everything still more
impressive than by day, the fall seen dimly white, singing Nature's old love
song with solemn enthusiasm, while the stars peering through the leaf-roof
seemed to join in the white water's song. Precious night, precious day to
abide in me forever. Thanks be to God for this immortal gift.
June 15. Another reviving
morning. Down the long mountain-slopes the sunbeams pour, gilding the
awakening pines, cheering every needle, filling every living thing with joy.
Robins are singing in the alder and maple groves, the same old song that has
cheered and sweetened countless seasons over almost all of our blessed
continent. In this mountain hollow they seem as much at home as in farmers'
orchards. Bullock's oriole and the Louisiana tanager are here also, with
many warblers and other little mountain troubadours, most of them now busy
about their nests.
Discovered another
magnificent specimen of the goldcup oak six feet in diameter, a Douglas
spruce seven feet, and a twining lily (Stropholirion), with stem eight feet
long, and sixty rose-colored flowers.
Sugar pine cones are
cylindrical, slightly tapered at the end and rounded at the base. Found one
to-day nearly twenty-four inches long and six in diameter, the scales being
open. Another specimen nineteen inches long; the average length of
full-grown cones on trees favorably situated is nearly eighteen inches. On
the lower edge of the belt at a height of about twenty-five hundred feet
above the sea they are smaller, say a foot to fifteen inches long, and at a
height of seven thousand feet or more near the upper limits of its growth in
the Yosemite region they are about the same size. This noble tree is an
inexhaustible study and source of pleasure. I never weary of gazing at its
grand tassel cones, its perfectly round bole one hundred feet or more
without a limb, the fine purplish color of its bark, and its magnificent
outsweeping, down-curving feathery arms forming a crown always bold and
striking and exhilarating. In habit and general port it looks somewhat like
a palm, but no palm that I have yet seen displays such majesty of form and
behavior either when poised silent and thoughtful in sunshine, or wide-awake
waving in storm winds with every needle quivering. When young it is very
straight and regular in form like most other conifers; but at the age of
fifty to one hundred years it begins to acquire individuality, so that no
two are alike in their prime or old age. Every tree calls for special
admiration. I have been making many sketches, and regret that I cannot draw
every needle. It is said to reach a height of three hundred feet, though the
tallest I have measured falls short of this stature. sixty feet or more. The
diameter of the largest near the ground is about ten feet, though I've heard
of some twelve feet thick or even fifteen. The diameter is held to a great
height, the taper being almost imperceptibly gradual. Its companion, the
yellow pine, is almost as large. The long silvery foliage of the younger
specimens forms magnificent cylindrical brushes on the top shoots and the
ends of the upturned branches, and when the wind sways the needles all one
way at a certain angle every tree becomes a tower of white quivering
sun-fire. Well may this shining species be called the silver pine. The
needles are sometimes more than a foot long, almost as long as those of the
long-leaf pine of Florida. But though in size the yellow pine almost equals
the sugar pine, and in rugged enduring strength seems to surpass it, it is
far less marked in general habit and expression, with its regular
conventional spire and its comparatively small cones clustered stiffly among
the needles. Were there no sugar pine, then would this be the king of the
world's eighty or ninety species, the brightest of the bright, waving,
worshiping multitude. Were they mere mechanical sculptures, what noble
objects they would still be! How much more throbbing, thrilling,
overflowing, full of life in every fiber and cell, grand glowing silver-rods
— the very gods of the plant kingdom, living their sublime century lives in
sight of Heaven, watched and loved and admired from generation to
generation! And how many other radiant resiny sun trees are here and higher
up, — libocedrus, Douglas spruce, silver fir, sequoia. How rich our
inheritance in these blessed mountains, the tree pastures into which our
eyes are turned!
Now comes sundown. The west
is all a glory of color transfiguring everything. Far up the Pilot Peak
Ridge the radiant host of trees stand hushed and thoughtful, receiving the
Sun's good-night, as solemn and impressive a leave-taking as if sun and
trees were to meet no more. The daylight fades, the color spell is broken,
and the forest breathes free in the night breeze beneath the stars.
June 16. One of the Indians
from Brown's Flat got right into the middle of the camp this morning,
unobserved. I was seated on a stone, looking over my notes and sketches, and
happening to look up, was startled to see him standing grim and silent
within a few steps of me, as motionless and weather-stained as an old
tree-stump that had stood there for centuries. All Indians seem to have
learned this wonderful way of walking unseen, — making themselves invisible
like certain spiders I have been observing here, which, in case of alarm,
caused, for example, by a bird alighting on the bush their webs are spread
upon, immediately bounce themselves up and down on their elastic threads so
rapidly that only a blur is visible. The wild Indian power of escaping
observation, even where there is little or no cover to hide in, was probably
slowly acquired in hard hunting and fighting lessons while trying to
approach game, take enemies by surprise, or get safely away when compelled
to retreat. And this experience transmitted through many generations seems
at length to have become what is vaguely called instinct.
How smooth and changeless
seems the surface of the mountains about us! Scarce a track is to be found
beyond the range of the sheep except on small open spots on the sides of the
streams, or where the forest carpets are thin or wanting. On the smoothest
of these open strips and patches deer tracks may be seen, and the great
suggestive footprints of bears, which, with those of the many small animals,
are scarce enough to answer as a kind of light ornamental stitching or
embroidery. Along the main ridges and larger branches of the river' Indian
trails may be traced, but they are not nearly as distinct as one would
expect to find them. How many centuries Indians have roamed these woods
nobody knows, probably a great many, extending far beyond the time that
Columbus touched our shores, and it seems strange that heavier marks have
not been made. Indians walk softly and hurt the landscape hardly more than
the birds and squirrels, and their brush and bark huts last hardly longer
than those of wood rats, while their more enduring monuments, excepting
those wrought on the forests by the fires they made to improve their hunting
grounds, vanish in a few centuries.
How different are most of
those of the white man, especially on the lower gold region - roads blasted
in the solid rock, wild streams dammed and tamed and turned out of their
channels and led along the sides of caflons and valleys to work in mines
like slaves. Crossing from ridge to ridge, high in the air, on long
straddling trestles as if flowing on stilts, or down and up across valleys
and hills, imprisoned in iron pipes to strike and wash away hills and miles
of the skin of the mountain's face, riddling, stripping every gold gully and
flat. These are the white man's marks made in a few feverish years, to say
nothing of mills, fields, villages, scattered hundreds of miles along the
flank of the Range. Long will it be ere these marks are effaced, though
Nature is doing what she can, replanting, gardening, sweeping away old dams
and flumes, leveling gravel and boulder piles, patiently trying to heal
every raw scar. The main gold storm, is over. Calm enough are the gray old
miners scratching a bare living in waste diggings here and there. Thundering
underground blasting is still going on to feed the pounding quartz mills,
but their influence on the landscape is light as compared with that of the
pick-and-shovel storms waged a few years ago. Fortunately for Sierra scenery
the gold-bearing slates are mostly restricted to the foothills. The region
about our camp is still wild, and higher lies the snow about as trackless as
the sky.
Only a few hills and domes of
cloudland were built yesterday and none at all to-day. The light is
peculiarly white and thin, though pleasantly warm. The serenity of this
mountain weather in the spring, just when Nature's pulses are beating
highest, is one of its greatest charms. There is only a moderate breeze from
the summits of the Range at night, and a slight breathing from the sea and
the lowland hills and plains during the day, or stillness so complete no
leaf stirs. The trees hereabouts have but little wind history to tell.
Sheep, like people, are
ungovernable when hungry. Excepting my guarded lily gardens, almost every
leaf that these hoofed locusts can reach within a radius of a mile or two
from camp has been devoured. Even the bushes are stripped bare, and in spite
of dogs and shepherds the sheep scatter to all points of the compass and
vanish in dust. I fear some are lost, for one of the sixteen black ones is
missing.
June 17. Counted the wool
bundles this morning as they bounced through the narrow corral gate. About
three hundred are missing, and as the shepherd could not go to seek them, I
had to go. I tied a crust of bread to my belt, and with Carlo set out for
the upper slopes of the Pilot Peak Ridge, and had a good day,
notwithstanding the care of seeking the silly runaways. I went out for wool,
and did not come back shorn. A peculiar light circled around the horizon,
white and thin like that often seen over the auroral corona, blending into
the blue of the upper sky. The only clouds were a few faint flossy
pencilings like combed silk. I pushed direct to the boundary of the usual
range of the flock, and around it until I found the outgoing trail of the
wanderers. It led far up the ridge into an open place surrounded by a
hedge-like growth of ceanothus chaparral. Carlo knew what I was about, and
eagerly followed the scent until we came up to them, huddled in a timid,
silent bunch. They had evidently been here all night and all the forenoon,
afraid to go out to feed. Having escaped restraint, they were, like some
people we know of, afraid of their freedom, did not know what to do with it,
and seemed glad to get back into the old familiar bondage.
June 18. Another inspiring
morning, nothing better in any world can be conceived. No description of
Heaven that I have ever heard or read of seems half so fine. At noon the
clouds occupied about .05 of the sky, white filmy touches drawn delicately
on the azure.
The high ridges and hilltops
beyond the woolly locusts are now gay with monardella, clarkia, coreopsis,
and tall tufted grasses, some of them tall enough to wave like pines. The
lupines, of which there are many ill-defined species, are now mostly out of
flower, and many of the compositor are beginning to fade, their radiant
corollas vanishing in fluffy pap-pus like stars in mist.
We had another visitor from
Brown's Flat to-day, an old Indian woman with a basket on her back. Like our
first caller from the village, she got fairly into camp and was standing in
plain view when discovered. How long she had been quietly looking on, I
cannot say. Even the dogs failed to notice her stealthy approach. She was on
her way, I suppose, to some wild garden, probably for lupine and starchy
saxifrage leaves and rootstocks. Her dress was calico rags, far from clean.
In every way she seemed sadly unlike Nature's neat well-dressed animals,
though living like them on the bounty of the wilderness. Strange that
mankind alone is dirty. Had she been clad in fur, or cloth woven of grass or
shreddy bark, like the juniper and libocedrus mats, she might then have
seemed a rightful part of the wilderness; like a good wolf at least, or
bear. But from no point of view that I have found are such debased fellow
beings a whit more natural than the glaring tailored tourists we saw that
frightened the birds and squirrels.
June 19. Pure sunshine all
day. How beautiful a rock is made by leaf shadows! Those of the live oak are
particularly clear and distinct, and beyond all art in grace and delicacy,
now still as if painted on stone, now gliding softly as if afraid of noise,
now dancing, waltzing in swift, merry swirls, or jumping on and off sunny
rocks in quick dashes like wave embroidery on seashore cliffs. How true and
substantial is this shadow beauty, and with what sublime extravagance is
beauty thus multiplied! The big orange lilies are now arrayed in all their
glory of leaf and flower. Noble plants, in perfect health, Nature's
darlings.
June 20. Some of the silly
sheep got caught fast in a tangle of chaparral this morning, like flies in a
spider's web, and had to be helped out. Carlo found them and tried to drive
them from the trap by the easiest way. How far above sheep are intelligent
dogs! No friend and helper can be more affectionate and constant than Carlo.
The noble St. Bernard is an honor to his race.
The air is distinctly
fragrant with balsam and resin and mint, — every breath of it a gift we may
well thank God for. Who could ever guess that so rough a wilderness should
yet be so fine, so full of good things. One seems to be in a majestic domed
pavilion in which a grand play is being acted with scenery and music and
incense, — all the furniture and action so interesting we are in no danger
of being called on to endure one dull moment. God himself seems to be always
doing his best here, working like a man in a glow of enthusiasm.
June 21. Sauntered along the
river-bank to my lily gardens. The perfection of beauty in these lilies of
the wilderness is a never-ending source of admiration and wonder. Their
rhizomes are set in black mould accumulated in hollows of the metamorphic
slates beside the pools, where they are well watered without being subjected
to flood action. Every leaf in the level whorls around the tall polished
stalks is as finely finished as the petals, and the light and heat required
are measured for them and tempered in passing through the branches of
over-leaning trees. However strong the winds from the noon rainstorms, they
are securely sheltered. Beautiful hypnum carpets bordered with ferns are
spread beneath them, violets too, and a few daisies. Everything around them
sweet and fresh like themselves.
Cloudland to-day is only a
solitary white mountain; but it is so enriched with sunshine and shade, the
tones of color on its big domed head and bossy outbulging ridges, and in the
hollows and ravines between them, are ineffably fine.
June 22. Unusually cloudy.
Besides the periodical shower-bearing cumuli there is a thin, diffused,
fog-like cloud overhead. About .75 in all.
June 23. Oh, these vast,
calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in
whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to
show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains
the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life,
stormy or calm, he is rich forever.
June 24. Our regular
allowance of clouds and thunder. Shepherd Billy is in a peck of trouble
about the sheep; he declares that they are possessed with more of the evil
one than any other flock from the beginning of the invention of mutton and
wool to the last batch of it. No matter how many are missing, he will not,
he says, go a step to seek them, because, as he reasons, while getting back
one wanderer he would probably lose ten. Therefore runaway hunting must be
Carlo's and mine. Billy's little dog Jack is also giving trouble by leaving
camp every night to visit his neighbors up the mountain at Brown's Flat. He
is a common-looking cur of no particular breed, but tremendously
enterprising in love and war. He has cut all the ropes and leather straps he
has been tied with, until his master in desperation, after climbing the
brushy mountain again and again to drag him back, fastened him with a pole
attached to his collar under his chin at one end, and to a stout sapling at
the other. But the pole gave good leverage, and by constant twisting during
the night, the fastening at the sapling end was chafed off, and he set out
on his usual journey, dragging the pole through the brush, and reached the
Indian settlement in safety. His master followed, and making no allowance,
gave him a beating, and swore in bad terms that next evening he would "fix
that infatuated pup" by anchoring him unmercifully to the heavy cast-iron
lid of our Dutch oven, weighing about as much as the dog. It was linked
directly to his collar close up under the chin, so that the poor fellow
seemed unable to stir. He stood quite discouraged until after dark, unable
to look about him, or even to lie down unless he stretched himself out with
his front feet across the lid, and his head close down between his paws.
Before morning, however, Jack was heard far up the height howling Excelsior,
cast-iron anchor to the contrary notwithstanding. He must have walked, or
rather climbed, erect on his hind legs, clasping the heavy lid like a shield
against his breast, a formidable ironclad condition in which to meet his
rivals. Next night, dog, pot-lid, and all, were tied up in an old bean-sack,
and thus at last angry Billy gained the victory. Just before leaving home,
Jack was bitten in the lower jaw by a rattlesnake, and for a week or so his
head and neck were swollen to more than double the normal size; nevertheless
he ran about as brisk and lively as ever, and is now completely recovered.
The only treatment he got was fresh milk — a gallon or two at a time
forcibly poured down his sore, poisoned throat.
June 25. Though only a
sheep-camp, this grand mountain hollow is home, sweet home, every day
growing sweeter, and I shall be sorry to leave it. The lily gardens are safe
as yet from the trampling flock. Poor, dusty, raggedy, famishing creatures,
I heartily pity them. Many a mile they must go every day to gather their
fifteen or twenty tons of chaparral and grass.
June 26. Nuttall's flowering
dogwood makes a fine show when in bloom. The whole tree is then snowy white.
The involucres are six to eight inches wide. Along the streams it is a
good-sized tree thirty to fifty feet high, with a broad head when not
crowded by companions. Its showy involucres attract a crowd of moths,
butterflies, and other winged people about it for their own, and, I suppose,
the tree's advantage. It likes plenty of cool water, and is a great drinker
like the alder, willow, and cottonwood, and flourishes best on stream banks,
though it often wanders . far from streams in damp shady glens beneath the
pines, where it is much smaller. When the leaves ripen in the fall, they
become more beautiful than the flowers, displaying charming tones of red,
purple, and lavender. Another species grows in abundance as a chaparral
shrub on the shady sides of the hills, probably Cornus sessilis. The leaves
are eaten by the sheep. — Heard a few lightning strokes in the distance,
with rumbling, mumbling reverberations.
June 27. The beaked hazel (Corylus
rostrata, var. Californica) is common on cool slopes up toward the summit of
the Pilot Peak Ridge. There is something peculiarly attractive in the hazel,
like the oaks and heaths of the cool countries of our forefathers, and
through them our love for these plants has, I suppose, been transmitted.
This species is four or five feet high, leaves soft and hairy, grateful to
the touch, and the delicious nuts are eagerly gathered by Indians and
squirrels. The sky as usual adorned with white noon clouds.
June 28. Warm, mellow summer.
The glowing sunbeams make every nerve tingle. The new needles of the pines
and firs are nearly full grown and shine gloriously. Lizards are glinting
about on the hot rocks; some that live near the camp are more than half
tame. They seem attentive to every movement on our part, as if curious to
simply look on without suspicion of harm, turning their heads to look back,
and making a variety of pretty gestures. Gentle, guileless creatures with
beautiful eyes, I shall be sorry to leave them when we leave camp.
June 29. I have been making
the acquaintance of a very interesting little bird that flits about the
falls and rapids of the main branches of the river. It is not a water-bird
in structure, though it gets its living in the water, and never leaves the
streams. It is not web-footed, yet it dives fearlessly into deep swirling
rapids, evidently to feed at the bottom, using its wings to swim with under
water just as ducks and loons do. Sometimes it wades about in shallow
places, thrusting its head under from time to time in a jerking, nodding,
frisky way that is sure to attract attention. It is about the size of a
robin, has short crisp wings serviceable for flying either in water or air,
and a tail of moderate size slanted upward, giving it, with its nodding,
bobbing manners, a wrennish look. Its color is plain bluish ash, with a
tinge of brown on the head and shoulders. It flies from fall to fall, rapid
to rapid, with a solid whir of wing-beats like those of a quail, follows the
windings of the stream, and usually alights on some rock jutting up out of
the current, or on some stranded snag, or rarely on the dry limb of an
overhanging tree, perching like regular tree birds when it suits its
convenience. It has the oddest, daintiest mincing manners imaginable; and
the little fellow can sing too, a sweet, thrushy, fluty song, rather low,
not the least boisterous, and much less keen and accentuated than from its
vigorous briskness one would be led to look for. What a romantic life this
little bird leads on the most beautiful portions of the streams, in a genial
climate with shade and cool water and spray to temper the summer heat. No
wonder it is a fine singer, considering the stream songs it hears day and
night. Every breath the little poet draws is part of a song, for all the air
about the rapids and falls is beaten into music, and its first lessons must
begin before it is born by the thrilling and quivering of the eggs in unison
with the tones of the falls. I have not yet found its nest, but it must be
near the streams, for it never leaves them.
June 30. Half cloudy, half
sunny, clouds lustrous white. The tall pines crowded along the top of the
Pilot Peak Ridge look like six-inch miniatures exquisitely outlined on the
satiny sky. Average cloudiness for the day about .25. No rain. And so this
memorable month ends, a stream of beauty unmeasured, no more to be sectioned
off by almanac arithmetic than sun-radiance or the currents of seas and
rivers — a peaceful, joyful stream of beauty. Every morning, arising from
the death of sleep, the happy plants and all our fellow animal creatures
great and small, and even the rocks, seemed to be shouting, "Awake, awake,
rejoice, rejoice, come love us and join in our song. Come! Come!" Looking
back through the stillness and romantic enchanting beauty and peace of the
camp grove, this June seems the greatest of all the months of my life, the
most truly, divinely free, boundless like eternity, immortal. Everything in
it seems equally divine — one smooth, pure, wild glow of Heaven's love,
never to be blotted or blurred by anything past or to come.
July 1. Summer is ripe.
Flocks of seeds are already out of their cups and pods seeking their
predestined places. Some will strike root and grow up beside their parents,
others flying on the wings of the wind far from them, among strangers. Most
of the young birds are full feathered and out of their nests, though still
looked after by both father and mother, protected and fed and to some extent
educated. How beautiful the home life of birds! No wonder we all love them.
I like to watch the
squirrels. There are two species here, the large California gray and the
Douglas. The latter is the brightest of all the squirrels I have ever seen,
a hot spark of life, making every tree tingle with his prickly toes, a
condensed nugget of fresh mountain vigor and valor, as free from disease as
a sunbeam. One cannot think of such an animal ever being weary or sick. He
seems to think the mountains belong to him, and at first tried to drive away
the whole flock of sheep as well as the shepherd and dogs. How he scolds,
and what faces he makes, all eyes, teeth, and whiskers! If not so comically
small, he would indeed be a dreadful fellow. I should like to know more
about his bringing up, his life in the home knot-hole, as well as in the
treetops, throughout all seasons. Strange that I have not yet found a nest
full of young ones. The Douglas is nearly allied to the red squirrel of the
Atlantic slope, and may have been distributed to this side of the continent
by way of the great unbroken forests of the north.
The California gray is one of
the most beautiful, and, next to the Douglas, the most interesting of our
hairy neighbors. Compared with the Douglas he is twice as large, but far
less lively and influential as a worker in the woods and he manages to make
his way through leaves and branches with less stir than his small brother. I
have never heard him bark at anything except our dogs. When in search of
food he glides silently from branch to branch, examining last year's cones,
to see whether some few seeds may not be left between the scales, or gleans
fallen ones among the leaves on the ground, since none of the present
season's crop is yet available. His tail floats now behind him, now above
him, level or gracefully curled like a wisp of cirrus cloud, every hair in
its place, clean and shining and radiant as thistle-down in spite of rough,
gummy work. His whole body seems about as unsubstantial as his tail. The
little Douglas is fiery, peppery, full of brag and fight and show, with
movements so quick and keen they almost sting the onlooker, and the
harlequin gyrating show he makes of himself turns one giddy to see. The gray
is shy, and oftentimes stealthy in his movements, as if half expecting an
enemy in every tree and bush, and back of every log, wishing only to be let
alone apparently, and manifesting no desire to be seen or admired or feared.
The Indians hunt this species for food, a good cause for caution, not to
mention other enemies — hawks, snakes, wild cats. In woods where food is
abundant they wear paths through sheltering thickets and over prostrate
trees to some favorite pool where in hot and dry weather they drink at
nearly the same hour every day. These pools are said to be narrowly watched,
especially by the boys, who lie in ambush with bow and arrow, and kill
without noise. But, in spite of enemies, squirrels are happy fellows, forest
favorites, types of tireless life. Of all Nature's wild beasts, they seem to
me the wildest. May we come to know each other better.
The chaparral-covered
hill-slope to the south of the camp, besides furnishing nesting-places for
countless merry birds, is the home and hiding-place of the curious wood rat
(Neotoma), a handsome, interesting animal, always attracting attention
wherever seen. It is more like a squirrel than a rat, is much larger, has
delicate, thick, soft fur of a bluish slate color, white on the belly; ears
large, thin, and translucent; eyes soft, full, and liquid; claws slender,
sharp as needles; and as his limbs are strong, he can climb about as well as
a squirrel. No rat or squirrel has so innocent a look, is so easily
approached, or expresses such confidence in one's good intentions. He seems
too fine for the thorny thickets he inhabits, and his hut also is as unlike
himself as may be, though softly furnished inside. No other animal
inhabitant of these mountains builds houses so large and striking in
appearance. The traveler coming suddenly upon a group of them for the first
time will not be likely to forget them. They are built of all kinds of
sticks, old rotten pieces picked up anywhere, and green prickly twigs bitten
from the nearest bushes, the whole mixed with miscellaneous odds and ends of
everything movable, such as bits of cloddy earth, stones, bones, deerhorn,
etc., piled up in a conical mass as if it were got ready for burning. Some
of these curious cabins are six feet high and as wide at the base, and a
dozen or more of them are occasionally grouped together, less perhaps for
the sake of society than for advantages of food and shelter. Coming through
the dense shaggy thickets of some lonely hillside, the solitary explorer
happening into one of these strange villages is startled at the sight, and
may fancy himself in an Indian settlement, and begin to wonder what kind of
reception he is likely to get. But no savage face will he see, perhaps not a
single inhabitant, or at most two or three seated on top of their wigwams,
looking at the stranger with the mildest of wild eyes, and allowing a near
approach. In the center of the rough spiky hut a soft nest is made of the
inner fibers of bark chewed to tow, and lined with feathers and the down of
various seeds, such as willow and milkweed. The delicate creature in its
prickly, thick-walled home suggests a tender flower in a thorny involucre.
Some of the nests are built in trees thirty or forty feet from the ground,
and even in garrets, as if seeking the company and protection of man, like
swallows and linnets, though accustomed to the wildest solitude. Among
housekeepers Neotoma has the reputation of a thief, because he carries away
everything transportable to his queer hut, — knives, forks, combs, nails,
tin cups, spectacles, etc., — merely, however, to strengthen his
fortifications, I guess. His food at home, as far as I have learned, is
nearly the same as that of the squirrels — nuts, berries, seeds, and
sometimes the bark and tender shoots of the various species of ceanothus.
July 2. Warm, sunny day,
thrilling plant and animals and rocks alike, making sap and blood flow fast,
and making every particle of the crystal mountains throb and swirl and dance
in glad accord like star-dust. No dullness anywhere visible or thinkable. No
stagnation, no death. Everything kept in joyful rhythmic motion in the
pulses of Nature's big heart.
Pearl cumuli over the higher
mountains — clouds, not with a silver lining, but all silver. The brightest,
crispest, rockiest-looking clouds, most varied in features and keenest in
outline I ever saw at any time of year in any country. The daily building
and unbuilding of these snowy cloud-ranges — the highest Sierra — is a prime
marvel to me, and I gaze at the stupendous white domes, miles high, with
ever fresh admiration. But in the midst of these sky and mountain affairs a
change of diet is pulling us down. We have been out of bread a few days, and
begin to miss it more than seems reasonable, for we have plenty of meat and
sugar and tea. Strange we should feel food-poor in so rich a wilderness. The
Indians put us to shame, so do the squirrels, — starchy roots and seeds and
bark in abundance, yet the failure of the meal sack disturbs our bodily
balance, and threatens our best enjoyments.
July 3. Warm. Breeze just
enough to sift through the woods and waft fragrance from their thousand
fountains. The pine and fir cones are growing well, resin and balsam
dripping from every tree, and seeds are ripening fast, promising a fine
harvest. The squirrels will have bread. They eat all kinds of nuts long
before they are ripe, and yet never seem to suffer in stomach. |
