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[This is the hub of the
region where Mr. Muir spent the greater part of the summer of 1868 and the
spring of 1869.]
WERE we to cross-cut the
Sierra Nevada into blocks a dozen miles or so in thickness, each section
would contain a Yosemite Valley and a river, together with a bright array of
lakes and meadows, rocks and forests. The grandeur and inexhaustible beauty
of each block would be so vast and over-satisfying that to choose among them
would be like selecting slices of bread cut from the same loaf. One
bread-slice might have burnt spots, answering to craters; another would be
more browned; another, more crusted or raggedly cut; but all essentially the
same. In no greater degree would the Sierra slices differ in general
character. Nevertheless, we all would choose the Merced slice, because,
being easier of access, it has been nibbled and tasted, and pronounced very
good; and because of the concentrated form of its Yosemite, caused by
certain conditions of baking, yeasting, and glacier-frosting of this portion
of the great Sierra loaf. In like manner, we readily perceive that the great
central plain is one batch of bread - one golden cake — and we are loath to
leave these magnificent loaves for crumbs, however good.
After our smoky sky has been
washed in the rains of winter, the whole complex row of Sierras appear from
the plain as a simple wall slightly beveled, and colored in horizontal bands
laid, one above another, as if entirely composed of partially straightened
rainbows. So, also, the plain seen from the mountains has the same
simplicity of smooth surface, colored purple and yellow, like a patchwork of
irised clouds. But when we descend to this smooth-furred sheet, we discover
complexity in its physical conditions equal to that of the mountains, though
less strongly marked. In particular, that portion of the plain lying between
the Merced and the Tuolumne, within ten miles of the slaty foothills, is
most elaborately carved into valleys, hollows, and smooth undulations, and
among them is laid the Merced Yosemite of the plain — Twenty Hill Hollow.
This delightful Hollow is
less than a mile in length, and of just sufficient width to form a
well-proportioned oval. It is situated about midway 'between the two rivers,
and five miles from the Sierra foothills. Its banks are formed of twenty
hemispherical hills; hence its name. They surround and enclose it on all
sides, leaving only one narrow opening toward the southwest for the escape
of its waters. The bottom of the Hollow is about two hundred feet below the
level of the surrounding plain, and the tops of its hills are slightly below
the general level. Here is no towering dome, no Tissiack, to mark its place;
and one may ramble close upon its rim before he is made aware of its
existence. Its twenty hills are as wonderfully regular in size and position
as in form. They are like big marbles half buried in the ground, each poised
and settled daintily into its place at a regular distance from its fellows,
making a charming fairy-land of hills, with small, grassy valleys between,
each valley having a tiny stream of its own, which leaps and sparkles out
into the open hollow, uniting to form Hollow Creek.
Like all others in the
immediate neighborhood, these twenty hills are composed of stratified lavas
mixed with mountain drift in varying proportions. Some strata are almost
wholly made up of volcanic matter — lava and cinders — thoroughly ground and
mixed by the waters that deposited them; others are largely composed of
slate and quartz boulders of all degrees of coarseness, forming
conglomerates. A few clear, open sections occur, exposing an elaborate
history of seas, and glaciers, and volcanic floods — chapters of cinders and
ashes that picture dark days, when V these bright snowy mountains were
clouded in smoke, and rivered and caked with living fire. A fearful age, say
mortals, when these Sierras flowed lava to the sea. What horizons of flame!
what atmospheres of ashes and smoke!
The conglomerates and lavas
of this region are readily denuded by water. In the time when their parent
sea was removed to form this golden plain, their regular surface, in great
part covered with shallow lakes, showed little variation from motionless
level until torrents of rain and floods from the mountains gradually
sculptured the simple page to the present diversity of bank and brae,
creating, in the section between the Merced and the Tuolumne, Twenty Hill
Hollow, Lily Hollow, and the lovely valleys of Cascade and Castle Creeks,
with many others nameless and unknown, seen only by hunters and shepherds,
sunk in the wide bosom of the plain, like undiscovered gold. Twenty Hill
Hollow is a fine illustration of a valley created by erosion of water. Here
are no Washington columns, no angular El Capitans. The hollow canons, cut in
soft lavas, are not so deep as to require a single earthquake at the hands
of science, much less a baker's dozen of those convenient tools demanded for
the making of mountain Yosemites, and our moderate arithmetical standards
are not outraged by a single magnitude of this simple, comprehensible
hollow.
The present rate of
denudation of this portion of the plain seems to be about one tenth of an
inch per year. This approximation is based upon observations made upon
stream-banks and perennial plants. Rains and winds remove mountains without
disturbing their plant or animal inhabitants. Hovering petrels, the fishes
and floating plants of ocean, sink and rise in beautiful rhythm with its
waves; and, in like manner, the birds and plants of the plain sink and rise
with these waves of land, the only difference being that the fluctuations
are more rapid in the one case than in the other.
In March and April the bottom
of the Hollow and every one of its hills are smoothly covered and plushed
with yellow and purple flowers, the yellow predominating. They are mostly
social Compositor, with a few claytonias,t gilias, eschscholtzias, white and
yellow violets, blue and yellow lilies, dodecatheons, and eriogonums set in
a half-floating maze of purple grasses. There is but one vine in the Hollow
— the Megarrhiza [Echinocystis T. & D.] or "Big Root." The only bush within
a mile of it, about four feet in height, forms so remarkable an object upon
the universal smoothness that my dog barks furiously around it, at a
cautious distance, as if it were a bear. Some of the hills have rock ribs
that are brightly colored with red and yellow lichens, and in moist nooks
there are luxuriant mosses — Bartramia, Dicranum, Funaria, and several
Hypnums. In cool, sunless coves the mosses are companioned with ferns — a
Cystopteris and the little gold-dusted *rock fern, Gymnogramma triangularis.
The Hollow is not rich in
birds. The meadowlark homes there, and the little burrowing owl, the
killdeer, and a species of sparrow. Occasionally a few ducks pay a visit to
its waters, and a few tall herons — the blue and the white — may at times be
seen stalking along the creek; and the sparrow hawk and gray eagle [Mr. Muir
doubtless meant the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos).] come to hunt. The
lark, who does nearly all the singing for the Hollow, is not identical in
species with the meadowlark of the East, though closely resembling it;
richer flowers and skies have inspired him with a better song than was ever
known to the Atlantic lark.
I have noted three distinct
lark-songs here. The words of the first, which I committed to memory at one
of their special meetings, spelled as sung, are "Wee-ro spee-ro wee-o
weer-ly wee-it." On the 20th of January, 1869, they sang "Queed-lix boodle,"
repeating it with great regularity, for hours together, to music sweet as
the sky that gave it. On the 22d of the same month, they sang "Chee chool
cheedildy choodildy." An inspiration is this song of the blessed lark, and
universally absorbable by human souls. It seems to be the only bird-song of
these hills that has been created with any direct reference to us. Music is
one of the attributes of matter, into whatever forms it may be organized.
Drops and sprays of air are specialized, and made to plash and churn in the
bosom of a lark, as infinitesimal portions of air plash and sing about the
angles and hollows of sand-grains, as perfectly composed and predestined as
the rejoicing anthems of worlds; but our senses are not fine enough to catch
the tones. Fancy the waving, pulsing melody of the vast flower-congregations
of the Hollow flowing from myriad voices of tuned petal and pistil, and
heaps of sculptured pollen. Scarce one note is for us; nevertheless, God be
thanked for this blessed instrument hid beneath the feathers of a lark.
The eagle does not dwell in
the Hollow; he only floats there to hunt the long-eared hare. One day I saw
a fine specimen alight upon a hillside. I was at first puzzled to know what
power could fetch the sky-king down into the grass with the larks. Watching
him attentively, I soon discovered the cause of his earthiness. He was
hungry and stood watching a long-eared hare, which stood erect at the door
of his burrow, staring his winged fellow mortal full in the face. They were
about ten feet apart. Should the eagle attempt to snatch the hare, he would
instantly disappear in the ground. Should long-ears, tired of inaction,
venture to skim the hill to some neighboring burrow, the eagle would swoop
above him and strike him dead with a blow of his pinions, bear him to some
favorite rock table, satisfy his hunger, wipe off all marks of grossness,
and go again to the sky.
Since antelopes have been
driven away, the hare is the swiftest animal of the Hollow. When chased by a
dog he will not seek a burrow, as when the eagle wings in sight, but skims
wavily from hill to hill across connecting curves, swift and effortless as a
bird-shadow. One that I measured was twelve inches in height at the
shoulders. His body was eighteen inches, from nose-tip to tail. His great
ears measured six and a half inches in length and two in width. His ears —
which, notwithstanding their great size, he wears gracefully and becomingly
— have procured for him the homely nickname, by which he is commonly known,
of "Jackass rabbit." Hares are very abundant over all the plain and up in
the sunny, lightly wooded foothills, but their range does not extend into
the close pine forests.
Coyotes, or California
wolves, are occasionally seen gliding about the Hollow; but they are not
numerous, vast numbers having been slain by the traps and poisons of
sheep-raisers. The coyote is about the size of a small shepherd-dog,
beautiful and graceful in motion, with erect ears, and a bushy tail, like a
fox. Inasmuch as he is fond of mutton, he is cordially detested by
"sheep-men" and nearly all cultured people.
The ground-squirrel is the
most common animal of the Hollow. In several hills there is a soft stratum
in which they have tunneled their homes. It is interesting to observe these
rodent towns in time of alarm. Their one circular street resounds with
sharp, lancing outcries of "Seekit, seek, seek, seekit!" Near neighbors,
peeping cautiously half out-of-doors, engage in low, purring chat. Others,
bolt upright on the doorsill or on the rock above, shout excitedly, as if
calling attention to the motions and aspects of the enemy. Like the wolf,
this little animal is accursed, because of his relish for grain. What a pity
that Nature should have made so many small mouths palated like our own!
All the seasons of the Hollow
are warm and bright, and flowers bloom through the whole year. But the grand
commencement of the annual genesis of plant and insect life is governed by
the setting-in of the rains, in December or January. The air, hot and
opaque, is then washed and cooled. Plant seeds, which for six months have
lain on the ground dry as if garnered in a farmer's bin, at once unfold
their treasured life. Flies hum their delicate tunes. Butterflies come from
their coffins, like cotyledons from their husks. The network of dry
water-courses, spread over valleys and hollows, suddenly gushes with bright
waters, sparkling and pouring from pool to pool, like dusty mummies risen
from the dead and set living and laughing with color and blood. The weather
grows in beauty, like a flower. Its roots in the ground develop day-clusters
a week or two in size, divided by and shaded in foliage of clouds; or round
hours of ripe sunshine wave and spray in sky-shadows, like racemes of
berries half hidden in leaves.
These months of so-called
rainy season are not filled with rain. Nowhere else in North America,
perhaps in the world, are Januarys so balmed and glowed with vital sunlight.
Referring to my notes of 1868 and 1869, I find that the first heavy general
rain of the season fell on the 18th of December. January yielded to the
Hollow, during the day, only twenty hours of rain, which was divided among
six rainy days. February had only three days on which rain fell, amounting
to eighteen and one half hours in all. March had five rainy days. April had
three, yielding seven hours of rain. May also had three wet days, yielding
nine hours of rain, and completed the so-called "rainy season" for that
year, which is probably about an average one. It must be remembered that
this rain record has nothing to do with what fell in the night.
The ordinary rainstorm of
this region has little of that outward pomp and sublimity of structure so
characteristic of the storms of the Mississippi Valley. Nevertheless, we
have experienced rainstorms out on these treeless plains, in nights of solid
darkness, as impressively sublime as the noblest storms of the mountains.
The wind, which in settled weather blows from the northwest, veers to the
southeast; the sky curdles gradually and evenly to a grainless, seamless,
homogeneous cloud; and then comes the rain, pouring steadily and often
driven aslant by strong winds. In 1869, more than three fourths of the
winter rains came from the southeast. One magnificent storm from the
northwest occurred on the 21st of March; an immense, round-browed cloud came
sailing over the flowery hills in most imposing majesty, bestowing water as
from a sea. The passionate rain-gush lasted only about one minute, but was
nevertheless the most magnificent cataract of the sky mountains that I ever
beheld. A portion of calm sky toward the Sierras was brushed with thin,
white cloud-tissue, upon which the rain-torrent showed to a great height — a
cloud waterfall, which, like those of Yosemite, was neither spray, rain, nor
solid water. In the same year the cloudiness of January, omitting rainy
days, averaged 0.32; February, 0.13; March, 0.20; April, 0.10; May, 0.08.
The greater portion of this cloudiness was gathered into a few days, leaving
the others blocks of solid, universal sunshine in every chink and pore.
At the end of January, four
plants were in flower: a small white cress, growing in large patches; a
low-set, umbelled plant, with yellow flowers; an eriogonum, with flowers in
leafless spangles; and a small boragewort. Five or six mosses had adjusted
their hoods, and were in the prime of life. In February, squirrels, hares,
and flowers were in springtime joy. Bright plant-constellations shone
everywhere about the Hollow. Ants were getting ready for work, rubbing and
sunning their limbs upon the husk-piles around their doors ; fat,
pollen-dusted, "burly, dozing humble-bees" were rumbling among the flowers;
and spiders were busy mending up old webs, or weaving new ones. Flowers were
born every day, and came gushing from the ground like gayly dressed children
from a church. The bright air became daily more songful with fly-wings, and
sweeter with breath of plants.
In March, plant-life is more
than doubled. The little pioneer cress, by this time, goes to seed, wearing
daintily embroidered silicles. Several claytonias appear; also, a large
white leptosiphon [?], and two nemophilas. A small plantago becomes tall
enough to wave and show silky ripples of shade. Toward the end of this month
or the beginning of April, plant-life is at its greatest height. Few have
any just conception of its amazing richness. Count the flowers of any
portion of these twenty hills, or of the bottom of the Hollow, among the
streams: you will find that there are from one to ten thousand upon every
square yard, counting the heads of Composite as single flowers. Yellow
Composite form by far the greater portion of this goldy-way. Well may the
sun feed them with his richest light, for these shining runlets are his very
children — rays of his ray, beams of his beam! One would fancy that these
California days receive more gold from the ground than they give to it. The
earth has indeed become a sky; and the two cloudless skies, raying toward
each other flower-beams and sunbeams, are fused and congolded into one
glowing heaven. By the end of April most of the Hollow plants have ripened
their seeds and died; but, undecayed, still assist the landscape with color
from persistent involucres and corolla-like heads of chaffy scales.
In May, only a few deep-set
lilies and eriogonums are left alive. June, July, August, and September are
the season of plant rest, followed, in October, by a most extraordinary
out-gush of plant-life, at the very driest time of the whole year. A small,
unobtrusive plant, Hemizonia uirgata, from six inches to three feet in
height, with pale, glandular leaves, suddenly bursts into bloom, in patches
miles in extent, like a resurrection of the gold of April. I have counted
upward of three thousand heads upon one plant. Both leaves and pedicels are
so small as to be nearly invisible among so vast a number of daisy
golden-heads that seem to keep their places unsupported, like stars in the
sky. The heads are about five eighths of an inch in diameter; rays and
disk-flowers, yellow; stamens, purple. The rays have a rich, furred
appearance, like the petals of garden pansies. The prevailing summer wind
makes all the heads turn to the southeast. The waxy secretion of its leaves
and involucres has suggested its grim name of "tarweed," by which it is
generally known. In our estimation, it is the most delightful member of the
whole Composite Family of the plain. It remains in flower until November,
uniting with an eriogonum that continues the floral chain across December to
the spring plants of January. Thus, although nearly all of the year's
plant-life is crowded into February, March, and April, the flower circle
around the Twenty Hill Hollow is never broken.
The Hollow may easily be
visited by tourists en route for Yosemite, as it is distant only about six
miles from Snelling's. It is at all seasons interesting to the naturalist;
but it has little that would interest the majority of tourists earlier than
January or later than April. If you wish to see how much of light, life, and
joy can be got into a January, go to this blessed Hollow. If you wish to see
a plant-resurrection,—myriads of bright flowers crowding from the ground,
like souls to a judgment,—go to Twenty Hills in February. If you are
traveling for health, play truant to doctors and friends, fill your pocket
with biscuits, and hide in the hills of the Hollow, lave in its waters, tan
in its golds, bask in its flower-shine, and your baptisms will make you a
new creature indeed. Or, choked in the sediments of society, so tired of the
world, here will your hard doubts disappear, your carnal incrustations melt
off, and your soul breathe deep and free in God's shoreless atmosphere of
beauty and love.
Never shall I forget my
baptism in this font. It happened in January, a resurrection day for many a
plant and for me. I suddenly found myself on one of its hills; the Hollow
overflowed with light, as a fountain, and only small, sunless nooks were
kept for mosseries and ferneries. Hollow Creek spangled and mazed like a
river. The ground steamed with fragrance. Light, of unspeakable richness,
was brooding the flowers. Truly, said I, is California the Golden State — in
metallic gold, in sun gold, and in plant gold. The sunshine for a whole
summer seemed condensed into the chambers of that one glowing day. Every
trace of dimness had been washed from the sky; the mountains were dusted and
wiped clean with clouds — Pacheco Peak and Mount Diablo, and the waved blue
wall between; the grand Sierra stood along the plain, colored in four
horizontal bands: — the lowest, rose purple; the next higher, dark purple;
the next, blue; and, above all, the white row of summits pointing to the
heavens.
It may be asked, What have
mountains fifty or a hundred miles away to do with Twenty Hill Hollow? To
lovers of the wild, these mountains are not a hundred miles away. Their
spiritual power and the goodness of the sky make them near, as a circle of
friends. They rise as a portion of the hilled walls of the Hollow. You
cannot feel yourself out of doors; plain, sky, and mountains ray beauty
which you feel. You bathe in these spirit-beams, turning round and round, as
if warming at a camp-fire. Presently you lose consciousness of your own
separate existence: you blend with the landscape, and become part and parcel
of nature.
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