IN CAMP ON THE NORTH FORK OF THE MERCED
_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 compositæ, 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 pellæa and cheilanthes on sunny
rocks. Some of the woodwardia fronds are already six feet high.
A handsome little shrub, _Chamæbatia 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 (_Saxifraga 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 branchlets, 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.
[Illustration: CAMP, NORTH FORK OF THE MERCED]
[Illustration: MOUNTAIN LIVE OAK (_Quercus chrysolepis_), EIGHT FEET IN
DIAMETER]
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, pellæa,
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, overleaning 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, larvæ, 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 larvæ 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 and
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 further 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.
[Illustration: SUGAR PINE]
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
cañons 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
compositæ are beginning to fade, their radiant corollas vanishing in
fluffy pappus 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 iron-clad 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.
[Illustration: DOUGLAS SQUIRREL OBSERVING BROTHER MAN]
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
tree-tops, 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 centre of the rough spiky hut a soft nest is made
of the inner fibres 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.