July 15. Followed the Mono
Trail up the eastern rim of the basin nearly to its summit, then turned off
southward to a small shallow valley that extends to the edge of the
Yosemite, which we reached about noon, and encamped. After luncheon I made
haste to high ground, and from the top of the ridge on the west side of
Indian Canon gained the noblest view of the summit peaks I have ever yet
enjoyed. Nearly all the upper basin of the Merced was displayed, with its
sublime domes and canons, dark upsweeping forests, and glorious array of
white peaks deep in the sky, every feature glowing, radiating beauty that
pours into our flesh and bones like heat rays from fire. Sunshine over all;
no breath of wind to stir the brooding calm. Never before had I seen so
glorious a landscape, so boundless an affluence of sublime mountain beauty.
The most extravagant description I might give of this view to any one who
has not seen similar landscapes with his own eyes would not so much as hint
its grandeur and the spiritual glow that covered it. I shouted and gesticulated
in a wild burst of ecstasy, much to the astonishment of St. Bernard Carlo,
who came running up to me, manifesting in his intelligent eyes a puzzled
concern that was very ludicrous, which had the effect of bringing me to my
senses. A brown bear, too, it would seem, had been a spectator of the show I
had made of myself, for I had gone but a few yards when I started one from a
thicket of brush. He evidently considered me dangerous, for he ran away very
fast, tumbling over the tops of the tangled manzanita bushes in his haste.
Carlo drew back, with his ears depressed as if afraid, and kept looking me
in the face, as if expecting me to pursue and shoot, for he had seen many a
bear battle in his day.
Following the ridge, which made a gradual
descent to the south, I came at length to the brow of that massive cliff
that stands between Indian Canon and Yosemite Falls, and here the far-famed
valley came suddenly into view throughout almost its whole extent. The noble
walls — sculptured into endless variety of domes and gables, spires and
battlements and plain mural precipices — all a-tremble with the thunder
tones of the falling water. The level bottom seemed to be dressed like a
garden - sunny meadows here and there, and groves of pine and oak; the river
of Mercy sweeping in majesty through the midst of them and flashing back the
sunbeams. The great Tissiack, or Half-Dome, rising at the upper end of the
valley to a height of nearly a mile, is nobly proportioned and life-like,
the most impressive of all the rocks, holding the eye in devout admiration,
calling it back again and again from falls or meadows, or even the mountains
beyond, — marvelous cliffs, marvelous in sheer dizzy depth and sculpture,
types of endurance. Thousands of years have they stood in the sky exposed to
rain, snow, frost, earthquake and avalanche, yet they still wear the bloom
of youth. I rambled
along the valley rim to the westward; most of it is rounded off on the very
brink, so that it is not easy to find places where one may look clear down
the face of the wall to the bottom. When such places were found, and I had
cautiously set my feet and drawn my body erect, I could not help fearing a
little that the rock might split off and let me down, and what a down! —
more than three thousand feet. Still my limbs did not tremble, nor did I
feel the least uncertainty as to the reliance to be placed on them. My only
fear was that a flake of the granite, which in some places showed joints
more or less open and running parallel with the face of the cliff, might
give way. After withdrawing from such places, excited with the view I had
got, I would say to myself, "Now don't go out on the verge again." But in
the face of Yosemite scenery cautious remonstrance is vain; under its spell
one's body seems to go where it likes with a will over which we seem to have
scarce any control.
After a mile or so of this memorable cliff work I approached Yosemite Creek,
admiring its easy, graceful, confident gestures as it comes bravely forward
in its narrow channel, singing the last of its mountain songs on its way to
its fate — a few rods more over the shining granite, then down half a mile
in showy foam to another world, to be lost in the Merced, where climate,
vegetation, inhabitants, all are different. Emerging from its last gorge, it
glides in wide lace-like rapids down a smooth incline into a pool where it
seems to rest and compose its gray, agitated waters before taking the grand
plunge, then slowly slipping over the lip of the pool basin, it descends
another glossy slope with rapidly accelerated speed to the brink of the
tremendous cliff, and with sublime, fateful confidence springs out free in
the air. I took off my
shoes and stockings and worked my way cautiously down alongside the rushing
flood, keeping my feet and hands pressed firmly on the polished rock. The
booming, roaring water, rushing past close to my head, was very exciting. I
had expected that the sloping apron would terminate with the perpendicular
wall of the valley, and that from the foot of it, where it is less steeply
inclined, I should be able to lean far enough out to see the forms and
behavior of the fall all the way down to the bottom. But I found that there
was yet another small brow over which I could not see, and which appeared to
be too steep for mortal feet. Scanning it keenly, I discovered a narrow
shelf about three inches wide on the very brink, just wide enough for a rest
for one's heels. But there seemed to be no way of reaching it over so steep
a brow. At length, after careful scrutiny of the surface, I found an
irregular edge of a flake of the rock some distance back from the margin of
the torrent. If I was to get down to the brink at all that rough edge, which
might offer slight finger-holds, was the only way. But the slope beside it
looked dangerously smooth and steep, and the swift roaring flood beneath,
overhead, and beside me was very nerve-trying. I therefore concluded not to
venture farther, but did nevertheless. Tufts of artemisia were growing in
clefts of the rock near by, and I filled my mouth with the bitter leaves,
hoping they might help to prevent giddiness. Then, with a caution not known
in ordinary circumstances, I crept down safely to the little ledge, got my
heels well planted on it, then shuffled in a horizontal direction twenty or
thirty feet until close to the outplunging current, which, by the time it
had descended thus far, was already white. Here I obtained a perfectly free
view down into the heart of the snowy, chanting throng of comet-like
streamers, into which the body of the fall soon separates.
While perched on that narrow niche I was not
distinctly conscious of danger. The tremendous grandeur of the fall in form
and sound and motion, acting at close range, smothered the sense of fear,
and in such places one's body takes keen care for safety on its own account.
How long I remained down there, or how I returned, I can hardly tell. Anyhow
I had a glorious time, and got back to camp about dark, enjoying triumphant
exhilaration soon followed by dull weariness. Hereafter I'll try to keep
from such extravagant, nerve-straining places. Yet such a day is well worth
venturing for. My first view of the High Sierra, first view looking down
into Yosemite, the death song of Yosemite Creek, and its flight over the
vast cliff, each one of these is of itself enough for a great life-long
landscape fortune — a most memorable day of days —enjoyment enough to kill
if that were possible.
July 16. My enjoyments yesterday afternoon, especially at the head of the
fall, were too great for good sleep. Kept starting up last night in a
nervous tremor, half awake, fancying that the foundation of the mountain we
were camped on had given way and was falling into Yosemite Valley. In vain I
roused myself to make a new beginning for sound sleep. The nerve strain had
been too great, and again and again I dreamed I was rushing through the air
above a glorious avalanche of water and rocks. One time, springing to my
feet, I said, "This time it is real — all must die, and where could
mountaineer find a more glorious death!"
Left camp soon after sunrise for an all-day
ramble eastward. Crossed the head of Indian Basin, forested with Abies
magnifica, underbrush mostly Ceanothus cordulatus and manzanita, a mixture
not easily trampled over or penetrated, for the ceanothus is thorny and
grows in dense snow-pressed masses, and the manzanita has exceedingly
crooked, stubborn branches. From the head of the canon continued on past
North Dome into the basin of Dome or Porcupine Creek. Here are many fine
meadows imbedded in the woods, gay with Lilium paruum and its companions;
the elevation, about eight thousand feet, seems to be best suited for it —
saw specimens that were a foot or two higher than my head. Had more
magnificent views of the upper mountains, and of the great South Dome, said
to be the grandest rock in the world. Well it may be, since it is of such
noble dimensions and sculpture. A wonderfully impressive monument, its lines
exquisite in fineness, and though sublime in size, is finished like the
finest work of art, and seems to be alive.
July 17. A new camp was made to-day in a
magnificent silver fir grove at the head of a small stream that flows into
Yosemite by way of Indian Canon. Here we intend to stay several weeks, — a
fine location from which to make excursions about the great valley and its
fountains. Glorious days I'll have sketching, pressing plants, studying the
wonderful topography and the wild animals, our happy fellow mortals and
neighbors. But the vast mountains in the distance, shall I ever know them,
shall I be allowed to enter into their midst and dwell with them?
We were pelted about noon by a short, heavy
rainstorm, sublime thunder reverberating among the mountains and canons, -
some strokes near, crashing, ringing in the tense crisp air with startling
keenness, while the distant peaks loomed gloriously through the cloud
fringes and sheets of rain. Now the storm is past, and the fresh washed air
is full of the essences of the flower gardens and groves. Winter storms in
Yosemite must be glorious. May I see them!
Have got my bed made in our new camp, — plushy,
sumptuous, and deliciously fragrant, most of it magnifica fir plumes, of
course, with a variety of sweet flowers in the pillow. Hope to sleep
to-night without tottering nerve-dreams. Watched a deer eating ceanothus
leaves and twigs. July
18. Slept pretty well; the valley walls did not seem to fall, though I still
fancied myself at the brink, alongside the white, plunging flood, especially
when half asleep. Strange the danger of that adventure should be more
troublesome now that I am in the bosom of the peaceful woods, a mile or more
from the fall, than it was while I was on the brink of it.
Bears seem to be common here, judging by their
tracks. About noon we had another rainstorm with keen startling thunder, the
metallic, ringing, clashing, clanging notes gradually fading into low bass
rolling and muttering in the distance. For a few minutes the rain came in a
grand torrent like a waterfall, then hail; some of the hailstones an inch in
diameter, hard, icy, and irregular in form, like those oftentimes seen in
Wisconsin. Carlo watched them with intelligent astonishment as they came
pelting and thrashing through the quivering branches of the trees. The cloud
scenery sublime. Afternoon calm, sunful, and clear, with delicious freshness
and fragrance from the firs and flowers and steaming ground.
July 19. Watching the daybreak and sunrise. The pale rose and purple sky
changing softly to daffodil yellow and white, sunbeams pouring through the
passes between the peaks and over the Yosemite domes, making their edges
burn; the silver firs in the middle ground catching the glow on their spiry
tops, and our camp grove fills and thrills with the glorious light.
Everything awakening alert and joyful; the birds begin to stir and
innumerable insect people. Deer quietly withdraw into leafy hiding-places in
the chaparral; the dew vanishes, flowers spread their petals, every pulse
beats high, every life cell rejoices, the very rocks seem to thrill with
life. The whole landscape glows like a human face in a glory of enthusiasm,
and the blue sky, pale around the horizon, bends peacefully down over all
like one vast flower.
About noon, as usual, big bossy cumuli began to grow above the forest, and
the rainstorm pouring from them is the most imposing I have yet seen. The
silvery zigzag lightning lances are longer than usual, and the thunder
gloriously impressive, keen, crashing, intensely concentrated, speaking with
such tremendous• energy it would seem that an entire mountain is being
shattered at every stroke, but probably only a few trees are being
shattered, many of which I have seen on my walks hereabouts strewing the
ground. At last the clear ringing strokes are succeeded by deep low tones
that grow gradually fainter as they roll afar into the recesses of the
echoing mountains, where they seem to be welcomed home. Then another and
another peal, or rather crashing, splintering stroke, follows in quick
succession, perchance splitting some giant pine or fir from top to bottom
into long rails and slivers, and scattering them to all points of the
compass. Now comes the rain, with corresponding extravagant grandeur,
covering the ground high and low with a sheet of flowing water, a
transparent film fitted like a skin upon the rugged anatomy of the
landscape, making the rocks glitter and glow, gathering in the ravines,
flooding the streams, and making them shout and boom in reply to the
thunder. How
interesting to trace the history of a single raindrop! It is not long,
geologically speaking, as we have seen, since the first raindrops fell on
the newborn leafless Sierra landscapes. How different the lot of these
falling now! Happy the showers that fall on so fair a wilderness, — scarce a
single drop can fail to find a beautiful spot, — on the tops of the peaks,
on the shining glacier pavements, on the great smooth domes, on forests and
gardens and brushy moraines, plashing, glinting, pattering, laving. Some go
to the high snowy fountains to swell their well-saved stores; some into the
lakes, washing the mountain windows, patting their smooth glassy levels,
making dimples and bubbles and spray; some into the waterfalls and cascades,
as if eager to join in their dance and song and beat their foam yet finer;
good luck and good work for the happy mountain raindrops, each one of them a
high waterfall in itself, descending from the cliffs and hollows of the
clouds to the cliffs and hollows of the rocks, out of the sky-thunder into
the thunder of the falling rivers. Some, falling on meadows and bogs, creep
silently out of sight to the grass roots, hiding softly as in a nest,
slipping, oozing hither, thither, seeking and finding their appointed work.
Some, descending through the spires of the woods, sift spray through the
shining needles, whispering peace and good cheer to each one of them. Some
drops with happy aim glint on the sides of crystals, — quartz, hornblende,
garnet, zircon, tourmaline, feldspar, — patter on grains of gold and heavy
way-worn nuggets; some, with blunt plap-plap and low bass drumming, fall on
the broad leaves of veratrum, saxifrage, cypripedium. Some happy drops fall
straight into the cups of flowers, kissing the lips of lilies. How far they
have to go, how many cups to fill, great and small, cells too small to be
seen, cups holding half a drop as well as lake basins between the hills,
each replenished with equal care, every drop in all the blessed throng a
silvery newborn star with lake and river, garden and grove, valley and
mountain, all that the landscape holds reflected in its crystal depths,
God's messenger, angel of love sent on its way with majesty and pomp and
display of power that make man's greatest shows ridiculous.
Now the storm is over, the sky is clear, the
last rolling thunder-wave is spent on the peaks, and where are the raindrops
now — what has become of all the shining throng? In winged vapor rising some
are already hastening back to the sky, some have gone into the plants,
creeping through invisible doors into the round rooms of cells, some are
locked in crystals of ice, some in rock crystals, some in porous moraines to
keep their small springs flowing, some have gone journeying on in the rivers
to join the larger raindrop of the ocean. From form to form, beauty to
beauty, ever changing, never resting, all are speeding on with love's
enthusiasm, singing with the stars the eternal song of creation.
July 20. Fine calm morning; air tense and clear;
not the slightest breeze astir; everything shining, the rocks with wet
crystals, the plants with dew, each receiving its portion of irised dewdrops
and sunshine like living creatures getting their breakfast, their dew manna
coming down from the starry sky like swarms of smaller stars. How wondrous
fine are the particles in showers of dew, thousands required for a single
drop, growing in the dark as silently as the grass! What pains are taken to
keep this wilderness in health, — showers of snow, showers of rain, showers
of dew, floods of light, floods of invisible vapor, clouds, winds, all sorts
of weather, interaction of plant on plant, animal on animal, etc., beyond
thought! How fine Nature's methods! How deeply with beauty is beauty
overlaid! the ground covered with crystals, the crystals with mosses and
lichens and low-spreading grasses and flowers, these with larger plants leaf
over leaf with ever-changing color and form, the broad palms of the firs
outspread over these, the azure dome over all like a bell-flower, and star
above star.
Yonder stands the South Dome,
its crown high above our camp, though its base is four thousand feet below
us; a most noble rock, it seems full of thought, clothed with living light,
no sense of dead stone about it, all spiritualized, neither heavy looking
nor light, steadfast in serene. strength like a god.
Our shepherd is a queer character and hard to
place in this wilderness. His bed is a hollow made in red dry-rot punky dust
beside a log which forms a portion of the south wall of the corral. Here he
lies with his wonderful everlasting clothing on, wrapped in a red blanket,
breathing not only the dust of the decayed wood but also that of the corral,
as if determined to take ammoniacal snuff all night after chewing tobacco
all day. Following the sheep he carries a heavy six-shooter swung from his
belt on one side and his luncheon on the other. The ancient cloth in which
the meat, fresh from the frying-pan, is tied serves as a filter through
which the clear fat and gravy juices drip down on his right hip and leg in
clustering stalactites. This oleaginous formation is soon broken up,
however, and , diffused and rubbed evenly into his scanty apparel, by
sitting down, rolling over, crossing his legs while resting on logs, etc.,
making shirt and trousers water-tight and shiny. His trousers, in
particular, have become so adhesive with the mixed fat and resin that pine
needles, thin flakes and fibres of bark, hair, mica scales and minute grains
of quartz, hornblende, etc., feathers, seed wings, moth and butterfly wings,
legs and antennae of innumerable insects, or even whole insects such as the
small beetles, moths and mosquitoes, with flower petals, pollen dust and
indeed bits of all plants, animals, and minerals of the region adhere to
them and are safely imbedded, so that though far from being a naturalist he
collects fragmentary specimens of everything and becomes richer than he
knows. His specimens are kept passably fresh, too, by the purity of the air
and the resiny bituminous beds into which they are pressed. Man is a
microcosm, at least our shepherd is, or rather his trousers. These precious
overalls are never taken off, and nobody knows how old they are, though one
may guess by their thickness and concentric structure. Instead of wearing
thin they wear thick, and in their stratification have no small geological
significance. Besides
herding the sheep, Billy is the butcher, while I have agreed to wash the few
iron and tin utensils and make the bread. Then, these small duties done, by
the time the sun is fairly above the mountain-tops I am beyond the flock,
free to rove and revel in the wilderness all the big immortal days.
Sketching on the North Dome. It commands views of nearly all the valley
besides a few of the high mountains. I would fain draw everything in sight
-- rock, tree, and leaf. But little can I do beyond mere outlines, — marks
with meanings like words, readable only to myself, — yet I sharpen my
pencils and work on as if others might possibly be benefited. Whether these
picture-sheets are to vanish like fallen leaves or go to friends like
letters, matters not much; for little can they tell to those who have not
themselves seen similar wildness, and like a language have learned it. No
pain here, no dull empty hours, no fear of the past, no fear of the future.
These blessed mountains are so compactly filled with Cod's beauty, no petty
personal hope or experience has room to be. Drinking this champagne water is
pure pleasure, so is breathing the living air, and every movement of limbs
is pleasure, while the whole body seems to feel beauty when exposed to it as
it feels the campfire or sunshine, entering not by the eyes alone, but
equally through all one's flesh like radiant heat, making a passionate
ecstatic pleasure-glow not explainable. One's body then seems homogeneous
throughout, sound as a crystal.
Perched like a fly on this Yosemite dome, I gaze
and sketch and bask, oftentimes settling down into dumb admiration without
definite hope of ever learning much, yet with the longing, unresting effort
that lies at the door of hope, humbly prostrate before the vast display of
God's power, and eager to offer self-denial and renunciation with eternal
toil to learn any lesson in the divine manuscript.
It is easier to feel than to realize, or in any
way explain, Yosemite grandeur. The magnitudes of the rocks and trees and
streams are so delicately harmonized they are mostly hidden. Sheer
precipices three thousand feet high are fringed with tall trees growing
close like grass on the brow of a lowland hill, and extending along the feet
of these precipices a ribbon of meadow a mile wide and seven or eight long,
that seems like a strip a farmer might mow in less than a day. Waterfalls,
five hundred to one or two thousand feet high, are so subordinated to the
mighty cliffs over which they pour that they seem like wisps of smoke,
gentle as floating clouds, though their voices fill the valley and make the
rocks tremble. The mountains, too, along the eastern sky, and the domes in
front of them, and the succession of smooth rounded waves between, swelling
higher, higher, with dark woods in their hollows, serene in massive
exuberant bulk and beauty, tend yet more to hide the grandeur of the
Yosemite temple and make it appear as a subdued subordinate feature of the
vast harmonious landscape. Thus every attempt to appreciate any one feature
is beaten down by the overwhelming influence of all the others. And, as if
this were not enough, 16 ! in the sky arises another mountain range with
topography as rugged and substantial-looking as the one beneath it — snowy
peaks and domes and shadowy Yosemite valleys - another version of the snowy
Sierra, a new creation heralded by a thunder-storm. How fiercely, devoutly
wild is Nature in the midst of her beauty-loving tenderness! — painting
lilies, watering them, caressing them with gentle hand, going from flower to
flower like a gardener while building rock mountains and cloud mountains
full of lightning and rain. Gladly we run for shelter beneath an overhanging
cliff and examine the reassuring ferns and mosses, gentle love tokens
growing in cracks and chinks. Daisies, too, and ivesias, confiding wild
children of light, too small to fear. To these one's heart goes home, and
the voices of the storm become gentle. Now the sun breaks forth and fragrant
steam arises. The birds are out singing on the edges of the groves. The west
is flaming in gold and purple, ready for the ceremony of the sunset, and
back I go to camp with my notes and pictures, the best of them printed in my
mind as dreams. A fruitful day, without measured beginning or ending. A
terrestrial eternity. A gift of good God.
Wrote to my mother and a few friends, mountain
hints to each. They seem as near as if within voice-reach or touch. The
deeper the solitude the less the sense of loneliness, and the nearer our
friends. Now bread and tea, fir bed and good-night to Carlo, a look at the
sky lilies, and death sleep until the dawn of another Sierra to-morrow.
July 21. Sketching on the Dome — no rain; clouds
at noon about quarter filled the sky, casting shadows with fine effect on
the white mountains at the heads of the streams, and a soothing cover over
the gardens during the warm hours.
Saw a common house-fly and a grasshopper and a
brown bear. The fly and grasshopper paid me a merry visit on the top of the
Dome, and I paid a visit to the bear in the middle of a small garden meadow
between the Dome and the camp where he was standing alert among the flowers
as if willing to be seen to advantage. I had not gone more than half a mile
from camp this morning, when Carlo, who was trotting on a few yards ahead of
me, came to a sudden, cautious standstill. Down went tail and ears, and
forward went his knowing nose, while he seemed to be saying, "Ha, what's
this? A bear, I guess." Then a cautious advance of a few steps, setting his
feet down softly like a hunting cat, and questioning the air as to the scent
he had caught until all doubt vanished. Then he came back to me, looked me
in the face, and with his speaking eyes reported a bear near by; then led on
softly, careful, like an experienced hunter, not to make the slightest
noise, and frequently looking back as if whispering, "Yes, it's a bear; come
and I'll show you." Presently we came to where the sunbeams were streaming
through between the purple shafts of the firs, which showed that we were
nearing an open spot, and here Carlo came behind me, evidently sure that the
bear was very near. So I crept to a low ridge of moraine boulders on the
edge of a narrow garden meadow, and in this meadow I felt pretty sure the
bear must be. I was anxious to get a good look at the sturdy mountaineer
without alarming him; so drawing myself up noiselessly back of one of the
largest of the trees I peered past its bulging buttresses, exposing only a
part of my head, and there stood neighbor Bruin within a stone's throw, his
hips covered by tall grass and flowers, and his front feet on the trunk of a
fir that had fallen out into the meadow, which raised his head so high that
he seemed to be standing erect. He had not yet seen me, but was looking and
listening attentively, showing that in some way he was aware of our
approach. I watched his gestures and tried to make the most of my
opportunity to learn what I could about him, fearing he would catch sight of
me and run away. For I had been told that this sort of bear, the cinnamon,
always ran from his bad brother man, never showing fight unless wounded or
in defense of young. He made a telling picture standing alert in the sunny
forest garden. How well he played his part, harmonizing in bulk and color
and shaggy hair with the trunks of the trees and lush vegetation, as natural
a feature as any other in the landscape. After examining at leisure, noting
the sharp muzzle thrust inquiringly forward, the long shaggy hair on his
broad chest, the stiff, erect ears nearly buried in hair, and the slow,
heavy way he moved his head, I thought I should like to see his gait in
running, so I made a sudden rush at him, shouting and swinging my hat to
frighten him, expecting to see him make haste to get away. But to my dismay
he did not run or show any sign of running. On the contrary, he stood his
ground ready to fight and defend himself, lowered his head, thrust it
forward, and looked sharply and fiercely at me. Then I suddenly began to
fear that upon me would fall the work of running; but I was afraid to run,
and therefore, like the bear, held my ground. We stood staring at each other
in solemn silence within a dozen yards or thereabouts, while I fervently
hoped that the power of the human eye over wild beasts would prove as great
as it is said to be. How long our awfully strenuous interview lasted, I
don't know; but at length in the slow fullness of time he pulled his huge
paws down off the log, and with magnificent deliberation turned and walked
leisurely up the meadow, stopping frequently to look back over his shoulder
to see whether I was pursuing him, then moving on again, evidently neither
fearing me very much nor trusting me. He was probably about five hundred
pounds in weight, a broad, rusty bundle of ungovernable wildness, a happy
fellow whose lines have fallen in pleasant places. The flowery glade in
which I saw him so well, framed like a picture, is one of the best of all I
have yet discovered, a conservatory of Nature's precious plant people. Tall
lilies were swinging their bells over that bear's back, with geraniums,
larkspurs, columbines, and daisies brushing against his sides. A place for
angels, one would say, instead of bears.
In the great canons Bruin reigns supreme. Happy
fellow, whom no famine can reach while one of his thousand kinds of food is
spared him. His bread is sure at all seasons, ranged on the mountain shelves
like stores in a pantry. From one to the other, up or down he climbs,
tasting and enjoying each in turn in different climates, as if he had
journeyed thousands of miles to other countries north or south to enjoy
their varied productions. I should like to know my hairy brothers better —
though after this particular Yosemite bear, my very neighbor, had sauntered
out of sight this morning, I reluctantly went back to camp for the Don's
rifle to shoot him, if necessary, in defense of the flock. Fortunately I
couldn't find him, and after tracking him a mile or two towards Mount
Hoffman I bade him Godspeed and gladly returned to my work on the Yosemite
Dome. The house-fly
also seemed at home and buzzed about me as I sat sketching, and enjoying my
bear interview now it was over. I wonder what draws house-flies so far up
the mountains, heavy gross feeders as they are, sensitive to cold, and fond
of domestic ease. How have they been distributed from continent to
continent, across seas and deserts and mountain chains, usually so
influential in determining boundaries of species both of plants and animals.
Beetles and butterflies are sometimes restricted to small areas. Each
mountain in a range, and even the different zones of a mountain, may have
its own peculiar species. But the house-fly seems to be everywhere. I wonder
if any island in mid-ocean is flyless. The bluebottle is abundant in these
Yosemite woods, ever ready with his marvelous store of eggs to make all dead
flesh fly. Bumblebees are here, and are well fed on boundless stores of
nectar and pollen. The honeybee, though abundant in the foothills, has not
yet got so high. It is only a few years since the first swarm was brought to
California. A queer
fellow and a jolly fellow is the grasshopper. Up the mountains he comes on
excursions, how high I don't know, but at least as far and high as Yosemite
tourists. I was much interested with the hearty enjoyment of the one that
danced and sang for me on the Dome this afternoon. He seemed brimful of
glad, hilarious energy, manifested by springing into the air to a height of
twenty or thirty feet, then diving and springing up again and making a sharp
musical rattle just as the lowest point in the descent was reached. Up and
down a dozen times or so he danced and sang, then alighted to rest, then up
and at it again. The curves he described in the air in diving and rattling
resembled those made by cords hanging loosely and attached at the same
height at the ends, the loops nearly covering each other. Braver, heartier,
keener, care-free enjoyment of life I have never seen or heard in any
creature, great or small. The life of this comic red-legs, the mountain's
merriest child, seems to be made up of pure, condensed gayety. The Douglas
squirrel is the only living creature that I can compare him with in
exuberant, rollicking, irrepressible jollity. Wonderful that these sublime
mountains are so loudly cheered and brightened by a creature so queer.
Nature in him seems to be snapping her fingers in the face of all earthly
dejection and melancholy with a boyish hip-hip-hurrah. How the sound is made
I do not understand. When he was on the ground he made not the slightest
noise, nor when he was simply flying from place to place, but only when
diving in curves, the motion seeming to be required for the sound; for the
more vigorous the diving the more energetic the corresponding outbursts of
jolly rattling. I tried to observe him closely while he was resting in the
intervals of his performances; but he would not allow a near approach,
always getting his jumping legs ready to spring for immediate flight, and
keeping his eyes on me. A fine sermon the little fellow danced for me on the
Dome, a likely place to look for sermons in stones, but not for grasshopper
sermons. A large and imposing pulpit for so small a preacher. No danger of
weakness in the knees of the world while Nature can spring such a rattle as
this. Even the bear did not express for me the mountain's wild health and
strength and happiness so tellingly as did this comical little hopper. No
cloud of care in his day, no winter of discontent in sight. To him every day
is a holiday; and when at length his sun sets, I fancy he will cuddle down
on the forest floor and die like the leaves and flowers, and like them leave
no unsightly remains calling for burial.
Sundown, and I must to camp. Good-night, friends
three, — brown bear, rugged boulder of energy in groves and gardens fair as
Eden; restless, fussy fly with gauzy wings stirring the air around all the
world; and grasshopper, crisp, electric spark of joy enlivening the massy
sublimity of the mountains like the laugh of a child. Thank you, thank you
all three for your quickening company. Heaven guide every wing and leg.
Good-night friends three, goodnight.
July 22. A fine specimen of the black-tailed
deer went bounding past camp this morning. A buck with wide spread of
antlers, showing admirable vigor and grace. Wonderful the beauty, strength,
and graceful movements of animals in wildernesses, cared for by Nature only,
when our experience with domestic animals would lead us to fear that all the
so-called neglected wild beasts would degenerate. Yet the upshot of Nature's
method of breeding and teaching seems to lead to excellence of every sort.
Deer, like all wild animals, are as clean as plants. The beauties of their
gestures and attitudes, alert or in repose, surprise yet more than their
bounding exuberant strength. Every movement and posture is graceful, the
very poetry of manners and motion. Mother Nature is too often spoken of as
in reality no mother at all. Yet how wisely, sternly, tenderly she loves and
looks after her children in all sorts of weather and wildernesses. The more
I see of deer the more I admire them as mountaineers. They make their way
into the heart of the roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of strength,
through dense belts of brush and forest encumbered with fallen trees and
boulder piles, across canons, roaring streams, and snow-fields, ever showing
forth beauty and courage. Over nearly all the continent the deer find homes.
In the Florida savannas and hummocks, in the Canada woods, in the far north,
roaming over mossy tundras, swimming lakes and rivers and arms of the sea
from island to island washed with waves, or climbing rocky mountains,
everywhere healthy and able, adding beauty to every landscape, —a truly
admirable creature and great credit to Nature.
Have been sketching a silver fir that stands on
a granite ridge a few hundred yards to the eastward of camp — a fine tree
with a particular snow-storm story to tell. It is about one hundred feet
high, growing on bare rock, thrusting its roots into a weathered joint less
than an inch wide, and bulging out to form a base to bear its weight. The
storm came from the north while it was young and broke it down nearly to the
ground, as is shown by the old, dead, weather-beaten top leaning out from
the living trunk built up from a new shoot below the break. The annual rings
of the trunk that have overgrown the dead sapling tell the year of the
storm. Wonderful that a side branch forming a portion of one of the level
collars that encircle the trunk of this species (Abies magnifica) should
bend upward, grow erect, and take the place of the lost axis to form a new
tree. Many others,
pines as well as firs, bear testimony to the crushing severity of this
particular storm. Trees, some of them fifty to seventy-five feet high, were
bent to the ground and buried like grass, whole groves vanishing as if the
forest had been cleared away, leaving not a branch or needle visible until
the spring thaw. Then the more elastic undamaged saplings rose again, aided
by the wind, some reaching a nearly erect attitude, others remaining more or
less bent, while those with broken backs endeavored to specialize a side
branch below the break and make a leader of it to form a new axis of
development. It is as if a man, whose back was broken or nearly so and who
was compelled to go bent, should find a branch backbone sprouting straight
up from below the break and should gradually develop new arms and shoulders
and head, while the old damaged portion of his body died.
Grand white cloud mountains and domes created
about noon as usual, ridges and ranges of endless variety, as if Nature
dearly loved this sort of work, doing it again and again nearly every day
with infinite industry, and producing beauty that never palls. A few
zig-zags of lightning, five minutes' shower, then a gradual wilting and
clearing.
July 23. Another midday cloudland, displaying
power and beauty that one never wearies in beholding, but hopelessly
unsketchable and untellable. What can poor mortals say about clouds? While a
description of their huge glowing domes and ridges, shadowy gulfs and
canons, and feather-edged ravines is being tried, they vanish, leaving no
visible ruins. Nevertheless, these fleeting sky mountains are as substantial
and significant as the more lasting upheavals of granite beneath them. Both
alike are built up and die, and in God's calendar difference of duration is
nothing. We can only dream about them in wondering, worshiping admiration,
happier than we dare tell even to friends who see farthest in sympathy, glad
to know that not a crystal or vapor particle of them, hard or soft, is lost;
that they sink and vanish only to rise again and again in higher and higher
beauty. As to our own work, duty, influence, etc., concerning which so much
fussy pother is made, it will not fail of its due effect, though, like a
lichen on a stone, we keep silent.
July 24. Clouds at noon occupying about half the
sky gave half an hour of heavy rain to wash one of the cleanest landscapes
in the world. How well it is washed! The sea is hardly less dusty than the
ice-burnished pavements and ridges, domes and canons, and summit peaks
plashed with snow like waves with foam. How fresh the woods are and calm
after the last films of clouds ha'e been wiped from the sky! A few minutes
ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling,
tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to
the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every
hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fibre thrilling like
harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and
leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the
more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther
off and dimmer seems the Lord himself., The same may be said of stone
temples. Yonder, to the eastward of our camp grove, stands one of Nature's
cathedrals, hewn from the living rock, almost conventional in form, about
two thousand feet high, nobly adorned with spires and pinnacles, thrilling
under floods of sunshine as if alive like a grove-temple, and well named
"Cathedral Peak." Even Shepherd Billy turns at times to this wonderful
mountain building, though apparently deaf to all stone sermons. Snow that
refused to melt in fire would hardly be more wonderful than unchanging
dullness in the rays of God's beauty. I have been trying to get him to walk
to the brink of Yosemite for a view, offering to watch the sheep for a day,
while he should enjoy what tourists come from all over the world to see. But
though within a mile of the famous valley, he will not go to it even out of
mere curiosity. "What," says he, "is Yosemite but a canon — a lot of rocks —
a hole in the ground — a place dangerous about falling into — a d—d good
place to keep away from." "But think of the waterfalls, Billy — just think
of that big stream we crossed the other day, falling half a mile through the
air — think of that, and the sound it makes. You can hear it now like the
roar of the sea." Thus I pressed Yosemite upon him like a missionary
offering the gospel, but he would have none of it. "I should be afraid to
look over so high a wall," he said. "It would make my head swim. There is
nothing worth seeing anywhere, only rocks, and I see plenty of them here.
Tourists that spend their money to see rocks and falls are fools, that's
all. You can't humbug me. I've been in this country too long for that." Such
souls, I suppose, are asleep, or smothered and befogged beneath mean
pleasures and cares.
July 25. Another cloudland. Some clouds have an over-ripe decaying look,
watery and bedraggled and drawn out into wind-torn shreds and patches,
giving the sky a littered appearance; not so these Sierra summer midday
clouds. All are beautiful with smooth definite outlines and curves like
those of glacier-polished domes. They begin to grow about eleven o'clock,
and seem so wonderfully near and clear from this high camp one is tempted to
try to climb them and trace the streams that pour like cataracts from their
shadowy fountains. The rain to which they give birth is often very heavy, a
sort of waterfall as imposing as if pouring from rock mountains. Never in
all my travels have I found anything more truly novel and interesting than
these midday mountains of the sky, their fine tones of color, majestic
visible growth, and ever-changing scenery and general effects, though mostly
as well let alone as far as description goes. I oftentimes think of
Shelley's cloud poem, "I sift the snow on the mountains below." |