TO THE HIGH MOUNTAINS
_July 8._ Now away we go toward the topmost mountains. Many still, small
voices, as well as the noon thunder, are calling, “Come higher.”
Farewell, blessed dell, woods, gardens, streams, birds, squirrels,
lizards, and a thousand others. Farewell. Farewell.
Up through the woods the hoofed locusts streamed beneath a cloud of
brown dust. Scarcely were they driven a hundred yards from the old
corral ere they seemed to know that at last they were going to new
pastures, and rushed wildly ahead, crowding through gaps in the brush,
jumping, tumbling like exulting hurrahing flood-waters escaping through
a broken dam. A man on each flank kept shouting advice to the leaders,
who in their famishing condition were behaving like Gadarene swine; two
other drivers were busy with stragglers, helping them out of brush
tangles; the Indian, calm, alert, silently watched for wanderers likely
to be overlooked; the two dogs ran here and there, at a loss to know
what was best to be done, while the Don, soon far in the rear, was
trying to keep in sight of his troublesome wealth.
[Illustration: DIVIDE BETWEEN THE TUOLUMNE AND THE MERCED BELOW HAZEL
GREEN]
As soon as the boundary of the old eaten-out range was passed the hungry
horde suddenly became calm, like a mountain stream in a meadow.
Thenceforward they were allowed to eat their way as slowly as they
wished, care being taken only to keep them headed toward the summit of
the Merced and Tuolumne divide. Soon the two thousand flattened paunches
were bulged out with sweet-pea vines and grass, and the gaunt, desperate
creatures, more like wolves than sheep, became bland and governable,
while the howling drivers changed to gentle shepherds, and sauntered in
peace.
Toward sundown we reached Hazel Green, a charming spot on the summit of
the dividing ridge between the basins of the Merced and Tuolumne, where
there is a small brook flowing through hazel and dogwood thickets
beneath magnificent silver firs and pines. Here, we are camped for the
night, our big fire, heaped high with rosiny logs and branches, is
blazing like a sunrise, gladly giving back the light slowly sifted from
the sunbeams of centuries of summers; and in the glow of that old
sunlight how impressively surrounding objects are brought forward in
relief against the outer darkness! Grasses, larkspurs, columbines,
lilies, hazel bushes, and the great trees form a circle around the fire
like thoughtful spectators, gazing and listening with human-like
enthusiasm. The night breeze is cool, for all day we have been climbing
into the upper sky, the home of the cloud mountains we so long have
admired. How sweet and keen the air! Every breath a blessing. Here the
sugar pine reaches its fullest development in size and beauty and number
of individuals, filling every swell and hollow and down-plunging ravine
almost to the exclusion of other species. A few yellow pines are still
to be found as companions, and in the coolest places silver firs; but
noble as these are, the sugar pine is king, and spreads long protecting
arms above them while they rock and wave in sign of recognition.
We have now reached a height of six thousand feet. In the forenoon we
passed along a flat part of the dividing ridge that is planted with
manzanita (_Arctostaphylos_), some specimens the largest I have seen. I
measured one, the bole of which is four feet in diameter and only
eighteen inches high from the ground, where it dissolves into many
wide-spreading branches forming a broad round head about ten or twelve
feet high, covered with clusters of small narrow-throated pink bells.
The leaves are pale green, glandular, and set on edge by a twist of the
petiole. The branches seem naked; for the chocolate-colored bark is very
smooth and thin, and is shed off in flakes that curl when dry. The wood
is red, close-grained, hard, and heavy. I wonder how old these curious
tree-bushes are, probably as old as the great pines. Indians and bears
and birds and fat grubs feast on the berries, which look like small
apples, often rosy on one side, green on the other. The Indians are said
to make a kind of beer or cider out of them. There are many species.
This one, _Arctostaphylos pungens_, is common hereabouts. No need have
they to fear the wind, so low they are and steadfastly rooted. Even the
fires that sweep the woods seldom destroy them utterly, for they rise
again from the root, and some of the dry ridges they grow on are seldom
touched by fire. I must try to know them better.
I miss my river songs to-night. Here Hazel Creek at its topmost springs
has a voice like a bird. The wind-tones in the great trees overhead are
strangely impressive, all the more because not a leaf stirs below them.
But it grows late, and I must to bed. The camp is silent; everybody
asleep. It seems extravagant to spend hours so precious in sleep. “He
giveth his beloved sleep.” Pity the poor beloved needs it, weak, weary,
forspent; oh, the pity of it, to sleep in the midst of eternal,
beautiful motion instead of gazing forever, like the stars.
_July 9._ Exhilarated with the mountain air, I feel like shouting this
morning with excess of wild animal joy. The Indian lay down away from
the fire last night, without blankets, having nothing on, by way of
clothing, but a pair of blue overalls and a calico shirt wet with sweat.
The night air is chilly at this elevation, and we gave him some
horse-blankets, but he didn’t seem to care for them. A fine thing to be
independent of clothing where it is so hard to carry. When food is
scarce, he can live on whatever comes in his way—a few berries, roots,
bird eggs, grasshoppers, black ants, fat wasp or bumblebee larvæ,
without feeling that he is doing anything worth mention, so I have been
told.
[Illustration: _A Silver Fir, or Red Fir (Abies magnifica)_]
Our course to-day was along the broad top of the main ridge to a hollow
beyond Crane Flat. It is scarce at all rocky, and is covered with the
noblest pines and spruces I have yet seen. Sugar pines from six to eight
feet in diameter are not uncommon, with a height of two hundred feet or
even more. The silver firs (_Abies concolor_ and _A. magnifica_) are
exceedingly beautiful, especially the _magnifica_, which becomes
more abundant the higher we go. It is of great size, one of the most
notable in every way of the giant conifers of the Sierra. I saw
specimens that measured seven feet in diameter and over two hundred feet
in height, while the average size for what might be called full-grown
mature trees can hardly be less than one hundred and eighty or two
hundred feet high and five or six feet in diameter; and with these noble
dimensions there is a symmetry and perfection of finish not to be seen
in any other tree, hereabout at least. The branches are whorled in fives
mostly, and stand out from the tall, straight, exquisitely tapered bole
in level collars, each branch regularly pinnated like the fronds of
ferns, and densely clad with leaves all around the branchlets, thus
giving them a singularly rich and sumptuous appearance. The extreme top
of the tree is a thick blunt shoot pointing straight to the zenith like
an admonishing finger. The cones stand erect like casks on the upper
branches. They are about six inches long, three in diameter, blunt,
velvety, and cylindrical in form, and very rich and precious looking.
The seeds are about three quarters of an inch long, dark reddish brown
with brilliant iridescent purple wings, and when ripe, the cone falls
to pieces, and the seeds thus set free at a height of one hundred and
fifty or two hundred feet have a good send off and may fly considerable
distances in a good breeze; and it is when a good breeze is blowing that
most of them are shaken free to fly.
The other species, _Abies concolor_, attains nearly as great a height
and thickness as the _magnifica_, but the branches do not form such
regular whorls, nor are they so exactly pinnated or richly leaf-clad.
Instead of growing all around the branchlets, the leaves are mostly
arranged in two flat horizontal rows. The cones and seeds are like those
of the _magnifica_ in form but less than half as large. The bark of the
_magnifica_ is reddish purple and closely furrowed, that of the
_concolor_ gray and widely furrowed. A noble pair.
At Crane Flat we climbed a thousand feet or more in a distance of about
two miles, the forest growing more dense and the silvery _magnifica_ fir
forming a still greater portion of the whole. Crane Flat is a meadow
with a wide sandy border lying on the top of the divide. It is often
visited by blue cranes to rest and feed on their long journeys, hence
the name. It is about half a mile long, draining into the Merced, sedgy
in the middle, with a margin bright with lilies, columbines, larkspurs,
lupines, castilleia, then an outer zone of dry, gently sloping ground
starred with a multitude of small flowers,—eunanus, mimulus, gilia,
with rosettes of spraguea, and tufts of several species of eriogonum and
the brilliant zauschneria. The noble forest wall about it is made up of
the two silver firs and the yellow and sugar pines, which here seem to
reach their highest pitch of beauty and grandeur; for the elevation, six
thousand feet or a little more, is not too great for the sugar and
yellow pines or too low for the _magnifica_ fir, while the _concolor_
seems to find this elevation the best possible. About a mile from the
north end of the flat there is a grove of _Sequoia gigantea_, the king
of all the conifers. Furthermore, the Douglas spruce (_Pseudotsuga
Douglasii_) and _Libocedrus decurrens_, and a few two-leaved pines,
occur here and there, forming a small part of the forest. Three pines,
two silver firs, one Douglas spruce, one sequoia,—all of them, except
the two-leaved pine, colossal trees,—are found here together, an
assemblage of conifers unrivaled on the globe.
We passed a number of charming garden-like meadows lying on top of the
divide or hanging like ribbons down its sides, imbedded in the glorious
forest. Some are taken up chiefly with the tall white-flowered _Veratrum
Californicum_, with boat-shaped leaves about a foot long, eight or ten
inches wide, and veined like those of cypripedium,—a robust, hearty,
liliaceous plant, fond of water and determined to be seen. Columbine and
larkspur grow on the dryer edges of the meadows, with a tall handsome
lupine standing waist-deep in long grasses and sedges. Castilleias, too,
of several species make a bright show with beds of violets at their
feet. But the glory of these forest meadows is a lily (_L. parvum_). The
tallest are from seven to eight feet high with magnificent racemes of
ten to twenty or more small orange-colored flowers; they stand out free
in open ground, with just enough grass and other companion plants about
them to fringe their feet, and show them off to best advantage. This is
a grand addition to my lily acquaintances,—a true mountaineer, reaching
prime vigor and beauty at a height of seven thousand feet or
thereabouts. It varies, I find, very much in size even in the same
meadow, not only with the soil, but with age. I saw a specimen that had
only one flower, and another within a stone’s throw had twenty-five. And
to think that the sheep should be allowed in these lily meadows! after
how many centuries of Nature’s care planting and watering them, tucking
the bulbs in snugly below winter frost, shading the tender shoots with
clouds drawn above them like curtains, pouring refreshing rain, making
them perfect in beauty, and keeping them safe by a thousand miracles;
yet, strange to say, allowing the trampling of devastating sheep. One
might reasonably look for a wall of fire to fence such gardens. So
extravagant is Nature with her choicest treasures, spending plant beauty
as she spends sunshine, pouring it forth into land and sea, garden and
desert. And so the beauty of lilies falls on angels and men, bears and
squirrels, wolves and sheep, birds and bees, but as far as I have seen,
man alone, and the animals he tames, destroy these gardens. Awkward,
lumbering bears, the Don tells me, love to wallow in them in hot
weather, and deer with their sharp feet cross them again and again,
sauntering and feeding, yet never a lily have I seen spoiled by them.
Rather, like gardeners, they seem to cultivate them, pressing and
dibbling as required. Anyhow not a leaf or petal seems misplaced.
The trees round about them seem as perfect in beauty and form as the
lilies, their boughs whorled like lily leaves in exact order. This
evening, as usual, the glow of our camp-fire is working enchantment on
everything within reach of its rays. Lying beneath the firs, it is
glorious to see them dipping their spires in the starry sky, the sky
like one vast lily meadow in bloom! How can I close my eyes on so
precious a night?
_July 10._ A Douglas squirrel, peppery, pungent autocrat of the woods,
is barking overhead this morning, and the small forest birds, so seldom
seen when one travels noisily, are out on sunny branches along the edge
of the meadow getting warm, taking a sun bath and dew bath—a fine
sight. How charming the sprightly confident looks and ways of these
little feathered people of the trees! They seem sure of dainty,
wholesome breakfasts, and where are so many breakfasts to come from? How
helpless should we find ourselves should we try to set a table for them
of such buds, seeds, insects, etc., as would keep them in the pure wild
health they enjoy! Not a headache or any other ache amongst them, I
guess. As for the irrepressible Douglas squirrels, one never thinks of
their breakfasts or the possibility of hunger, sickness or death; rather
they seem like stars above chance or change, even though we may see them
at times busy gathering burrs, working hard for a living.
On through the forest ever higher we go, a cloud of dust dimming the
way, thousands of feet trampling leaves and flowers, but in this mighty
wilderness they seem but a feeble band, and a thousand gardens will
escape their blighting touch. They cannot hurt the trees, though some of
the seedlings suffer, and should the woolly locusts be greatly
multiplied, as on account of dollar value they are likely to be, then
the forests, too, may in time be destroyed. Only the sky will then be
safe, though hid from view by dust and smoke, incense of a bad
sacrifice. Poor, helpless, hungry sheep, in great part misbegotten,
without good right to be, semi-manufactured, made less by God than man,
born out of time and place, yet their voices are strangely human and
call out one’s pity.
Our way is still along the Merced and Tuolumne divide, the streams on
our right going to swell the songful Yosemite River, those on our left
to the songful Tuolumne, slipping through sunny carex and lily meadows,
and breaking into song down a thousand ravines almost as soon as they
are born. A more tuneful set of streams surely nowhere exists, or more
sparkling crystal pure, now gliding with tinkling whisper, now with
merry dimpling rush, in and out through sunshine and shade, shimmering
in pools, uniting their currents, bouncing, dancing from form to form
over cliffs and inclines, ever more beautiful the farther they go until
they pour into the main glacial rivers.
All day I have been gazing in growing admiration at the noble groups of
the magnificent silver fir which more and more is taking the ground to
itself. The woods above Crane Flat still continue comparatively open,
letting in the sunshine on the brown needle-strewn ground. Not only are
the individual trees admirable in symmetry and superb in foliage and
port, but half a dozen or more often form temple groves in which the
trees are so nicely graded in size and position as to seem one. Here,
indeed, is the tree-lover’s paradise. The dullest eye in the world must
surely be quickened by such trees as these.
Fortunately the sheep need little attention, as they are driven slowly
and allowed to nip and nibble as they like. Since leaving Hazel Green we
have been following the Yosemite trail; visitors to the famous valley
coming by way of Coulterville and Chinese Camp pass this way—the two
trails uniting at Crane Flat—and enter the valley on the north side.
Another trail enters on the south side by way of Mariposa. The tourists
we saw were in parties of from three or four to fifteen or twenty,
mounted on mules or small mustang ponies. A strange show they made,
winding single file through the solemn woods in gaudy attire, scaring
the wild creatures, and one might fancy that even the great pines would
be disturbed and groan aghast. But what may we say of ourselves and the
flock?
We are now camped at Tamarack Flat, within four or five miles of the
lower end of Yosemite. Here is another fine meadow embosomed in the
woods, with a deep, clear stream gliding through it, its banks rounded
and beveled with a thatch of dipping sedges. The flat is named after the
two-leaved pine (_Pinus contorta_, var. _Murrayana_), common here,
especially around the cool margin of the meadow. On rocky ground it is a
rough, thickset tree, about forty to sixty feet high and one to three
feet in diameter, bark thin and gummy, branches rather naked, tassels,
leaves, and cones small. But in damp, rich soil it grows close and
slender, and reaches a height at times of nearly a hundred feet.
Specimens only six inches in diameter at the ground are often fifty or
sixty feet in height, as slender and sharp in outline as arrows, like
the true tamarack (larch) of the Eastern States; hence the name, though
it is a pine.
_July 11._ The Don has gone ahead on one of the pack animals to spy out
the land to the north of Yosemite in search of the best point for a
central camp. Much higher than this we cannot now go, for the upper
pastures, said to be better than any hereabouts, are still buried in
heavy winter snow. Glad I am that camp is to be fixed in the Yosemite
region, for many a glorious ramble I’ll have along the top of the walls,
and then what landscapes I shall find with their new mountains and
cañons, forests and gardens, lakes and streams and falls.
We are now about seven thousand feet above the sea, and the nights are
so cool we have to pile coats and extra clothing on top of our blankets.
Tamarack Creek is icy cold, delicious, exhilarating champagne water. It
is flowing bank-full in the meadow with silent speed, but only a few
hundred yards below our camp the ground is bare gray granite strewn with
boulders, large spaces being without a single tree or only a small one
here and there anchored in narrow seams and cracks. The boulders, many
of them very large, are not in piles or scattered like rubbish among
loose crumbling dÈbris as if weathered out of the solid as boulders of
disintegration; they mostly occur singly, and are lying on a clean
pavement on which the sunshine falls in a glare that contrasts with the
shimmer of light and shade we have been accustomed to in the leafy
woods. And, strange to say, these boulders lying so still and deserted,
with no moving force near them, no boulder carrier anywhere in sight,
were nevertheless brought from a distance, as difference in color and
composition shows, quarried and carried and laid down here each in its
place; nor have they stirred, most of them, through calm and storm since
first they arrived. They look lonely here, strangers in a strange
land,—huge blocks, angular mountain chips, the largest twenty or thirty
feet in diameter, the chips that Nature has made in modeling her
landscapes, fashioning the forms of her mountains and valleys. And with
what tool were they quarried and carried? On the pavement we find its
marks. The most resisting unweathered portion of the surface is scored
and striated in a rigidly parallel way, indicating that the region has
been overswept by a glacier from the northeastward, grinding down the
general mass of the mountains, scoring and polishing, producing a
strange, raw, wiped appearance, and dropping whatever boulders it
chanced to be carrying at the time it was melted at the close of the
Glacial Period. A fine discovery this. As for the forests we have been
passing through, they are probably growing on deposits of soil most of
which has been laid down by this same ice agent in the form of moraines
of different sorts, now in great part disintegrated and outspread by
post-glacial weathering.
Out of the grassy meadow and down over this ice-planed granite runs the
glad young Tamarack Creek, rejoicing, exulting, chanting, dancing in
white, glowing, irised falls and cascades on its way to the Merced
Cañon, a few miles below Yosemite, falling more than three thousand feet
in a distance of about two miles.
All the Merced streams are wonderful singers, and Yosemite is the centre
where the main tributaries meet. From a point about half a mile from our
camp we can see into the lower end of the famous valley, with its
wonderful cliffs and groves, a grand page of mountain manuscript that I
would gladly give my life to be able to read. How vast it seems, how
short human life when we happen to think of it, and how little we may
learn, however hard we try! Yet why bewail our poor inevitable
ignorance? Some of the external beauty is always in sight, enough to
keep every fibre of us tingling, and this we are able to gloriously
enjoy though the methods of its creation may lie beyond our ken. Sing
on, brave Tamarack Creek, fresh from your snowy fountains, plash and
swirl and dance to your fate in the sea; bathing, cheering every living
thing along your way.
Have greatly enjoyed all this huge day, sauntering and seeing, steeping
in the mountain influences, sketching, noting, pressing flowers,
drinking ozone and Tamarack water. Found the white fragrant Washington
lily, the finest of all the Sierra lilies. Its bulbs are buried in
shaggy chaparral tangles, I suppose for safety from pawing bears; and
its magnificent panicles sway and rock over the top of the rough
snow-pressed bushes, while big, bold, blunt-nosed bees drone and mumble
in its polleny bells. A lovely flower, worth going hungry and footsore
endless miles to see. The whole world seems richer now that I have found
this plant in so noble a landscape.
A log house serves to mark a claim to the Tamarack meadow, which may
become valuable as a station in case travel to Yosemite should greatly
increase. Belated parties occasionally stop here. A white man with an
Indian woman is holding possession of the place.
Sauntered up the meadow about sundown, out of sight of camp and sheep
and all human mark, into the deep peace of the solemn old woods,
everything glowing with Heaven’s unquenchable enthusiasm.
_July 12._ The Don has returned, and again we go on pilgrimage.
“Looking over the Yosemite Creek country,” he said, “from the tops of
the hills you see nothing but rocks and patches of trees; but when you
go down into the rocky desert you find no end of small grassy banks and
meadows, and so the country is not half so lean as it looks. There we’ll
go and stay until the snow is melted from the upper country.”
I was glad to hear that the high snow made a stay in the Yosemite region
necessary, for I am anxious to see as much of it as possible. What fine
times I shall have sketching, studying plants and rocks, and scrambling
about the brink of the great valley alone, out of sight and sound of
camp!
We saw another party of Yosemite tourists to-day. Somehow most of these
travelers seem to care but little for the glorious objects about them,
though enough to spend time and money and endure long rides to see the
famous valley. And when they are fairly within the mighty walls of the
temple and hear the psalms of the falls, they will forget themselves and
become devout. Blessed, indeed, should be every pilgrim in these holy
mountains!
We moved slowly eastward along the Mono Trail, and early in the
afternoon unpacked and camped on the bank of Cascade Creek. The Mono
Trail crosses the range by the Bloody Cañon Pass to gold mines near the
north end of Mono Lake. These mines were reported to be rich when first
discovered, and a grand rush took place, making a trail necessary. A few
small bridges were built over streams where fording was not practicable
on account of the softness of the bottom, sections of fallen trees cut
out, and lanes made through thickets wide enough to allow the passage of
bulky packs; but over the greater part of the way scarce a stone or
shovelful of earth has been moved.
The woods we passed through are composed almost wholly of _Abies
magnifica_, the companion species, _concolor_, being mostly left behind
on account of altitude, while the increasing elevation seems grateful to
the charming _magnifica_. No words can do anything like justice to this
noble tree. At one place many had fallen during some heavy wind-storm,
owing to the loose sandy character of the soil, which offered no secure
anchorage. The soil is mostly decomposed and disintegrated moraine
material.
The sheep are lying down on a bare rocky spot such as they like, chewing
the cud in grassy peace. Cooking is going on, appetites growing keener
every day. No lowlander can appreciate the mountain appetite, and the
facility with which heavy food called “grub” is disposed of. Eating,
walking, resting, seem alike delightful, and one feels inclined to shout
lustily on rising in the morning like a crowing cock. Sleep and
digestion as clear as the air. Fine spicy plush boughs for bedding we
shall have to-night, and a glorious lullaby from this cascading creek.
Never was stream more fittingly named, for as far as I have traced it
above and below our camp it is one continuous bouncing, dancing, white
bloom of cascades. And at the very last unwearied it finishes its wild
course in a grand leap of three hundred feet or more to the bottom of
the main Yosemite cañon near the fall of Tamarack Creek, a few miles
below the foot of the valley. These falls almost rival some of the
far-famed Yosemite falls. Never shall I forget these glad cascade songs,
the low booming, the roaring, the keen, silvery clashing of the cool
water rushing exulting from form to form beneath irised spray; or in the
deep still night seen white in the darkness, and its multitude of voices
sounding still more impressively sublime. Here I find the little water
ouzel as much at home as any linnet in a leafy grove, seeming to take
the greater delight the more boisterous the stream. The dizzy
precipices, the swift dashing energy displayed, and the thunder tones of
the sheer falls are awe inspiring, but there is nothing awful about
this little bird. Its song is sweet and low, and all its gestures, as it
flits about amid the loud uproar, bespeak strength and peace and joy.
Contemplating these darlings of Nature coming forth from spray-sprinkled
nests on the brink of savage streams, Samson’s riddle comes to mind,
“Out of the strong cometh forth sweetness.” A yet finer bloom is this
little bird than the foam-bells in eddying pools. Gentle bird, a
precious message you bring me. We may miss the meaning of the torrent,
but thy sweet voice, only love is in it.
_July 13._ Our course all day has been eastward over the rim of Yosemite
Creek basin and down about halfway to the bottom, where we have encamped
on a sheet of glacier-polished granite, a firm foundation for beds. Saw
the tracks of a very large bear on the trail, and the Don talked of
bears in general. I said I should like to see the maker of these immense
tracks as he marched along, and follow him for days, without disturbing
him, to learn something of the life of this master beast of the
wilderness. Lambs, the Don told me, born in the lowland, that never saw
or heard a bear, snort and run in terror when they catch the scent,
showing how fully they have inherited a knowledge of their enemy. Hogs,
mules, horses, and cattle are afraid of bears, and are seized with
ungovernable terror when they approach, particularly hogs and mules.
Hogs are frequently driven to pastures in the foothills of the Coast
Range and Sierra where acorns are abundant, and are herded in droves of
hundreds like sheep. When a bear comes to the range they promptly leave
it, emigrating in a body, usually in the night time, the keepers being
powerless to prevent; they thus show more sense than sheep, that simply
scatter in the rocks and brush and await their fate. Mules flee like the
wind with or without riders when they see a bear, and, if picketed,
sometimes break their necks in trying to break their ropes, though I
have not heard of bears killing mules or horses. Of hogs they are said
to be particularly fond, bolting small ones, bones and all, without
choice of parts. In particular, Mr. Delaney assured me that all kinds of
bears in the Sierra are very shy, and that hunters found far greater
difficulty in getting within gunshot of them than of deer or indeed any
other animal in the Sierra, and if I was anxious to see much of them I
should have to wait and watch with endless Indian patience and pay no
attention to anything else.
Night is coming on, the gray rock waves are growing dim in the twilight.
How raw and young this region appears! Had the ice sheet that swept
over it vanished but yesterday, its traces on the more resisting
portions about our camp could hardly be more distinct than they now are.
The horses and sheep and all of us, indeed, slipped on the smoothest
places.
_July 14._ How deathlike is sleep in this mountain air, and quick the
awakening into newness of life! A calm dawn, yellow and purple, then
floods of sun-gold, making every thing tingle and glow.
In an hour or two we came to Yosemite Creek, the stream that makes the
greatest of all the Yosemite falls. It is about forty feet wide at the
Mono Trail crossing, and now about four feet in average depth, flowing
about three miles an hour. The distance to the verge of the Yosemite
wall, where it makes its tremendous plunge, is only about two miles from
here. Calm, beautiful, and nearly silent, it glides with stately
gestures, a dense growth of the slender two-leaved pine along its banks,
and a fringe of willow, purple spirea, sedges, daisies, lilies, and
columbines. Some of the sedges and willow boughs dip into the current,
and just outside of the close ranks of trees there is a sunny flat of
washed gravelly sand which seems to have been deposited by some ancient
flood. It is covered with millions of erethrea, eriogonum, and
oxytheca, with more flowers than leaves, forming an even growth,
slightly dimpled and ruffled here and there by rosettes of _Spraguea
umbellata_. Back of this flowery strip there is a wavy upsloping plain
of solid granite, so smoothly ice-polished in many places that it
glistens in the sun like glass. In shallow hollows there are patches of
trees, mostly the rough form of the two-leaved pine, rather scrawny
looking where there is little or no soil. Also a few junipers
(_Juniperus occidentalis_), short and stout, with bright
cinnamon-colored bark and gray foliage, standing alone mostly, on the
sun-beaten pavement, safe from fire, clinging by slight joints,—a
sturdy storm-enduring mountaineer of a tree, living on sunshine and
snow, maintaining tough health on this diet for perhaps more than a
thousand years.
Up towards the head of the basin I see groups of domes rising above the
wavelike ridges, and some picturesque castellated masses, and dark
strips and patches of silver fir, indicating deposits of fertile soil.
Would that I could command the time to study them! What rich excursions
one could make in this well-defined basin! Its glacial inscriptions and
sculptures, how marvelous they seem, how noble the studies they offer! I
tremble with excitement in the dawn of these glorious mountain
sublimities, but I can only gaze and wonder, and, like a child, gather
here and there a lily, half hoping I may be able to study and learn in
years to come.
The drivers and dogs had a lively, laborious time getting the sheep
across the creek, the second large stream thus far that they have been
compelled to cross without a bridge; the first being the North Fork of
the Merced near Bower Cave. Men and dogs, shouting and barking, drove
the timid, water-fearing creatures in a close crowd against the bank,
but not one of the flock would launch away. While thus jammed, the Don
and the shepherd rushed through the frightened crowd to stampede those
in front, but this would only cause a break backward, and away they
would scamper through the stream-bank trees and scatter over the rocky
pavement. Then with the aid of the dogs the runaways would again be
gathered and made to face the stream, and again the compacted mass would
break away, amid wild shouting and barking that might well have
disturbed the stream itself and marred the music of its falls, to which
visitors no doubt from all quarters of the globe were listening. “Hold
them there! Now hold them there!” shouted the Don; “the front ranks will
soon tire of the pressure, and be glad to take to the water, then all
will jump in and cross in a hurry.” But they did nothing of the kind;
they only avoided the pressure by breaking back in scores and hundreds,
leaving the beauty of the banks sadly trampled.
If only one could be got to cross over, all would make haste to follow;
but that one could not be found. A lamb was caught, carried across, and
tied to a bush on the opposite bank, where it cried piteously for its
mother. But though greatly concerned, the mother only called it back.
That play on maternal affection failed, and we began to fear that we
should be forced to make a long roundabout drive and cross the
wide-spread tributaries of the creek in succession. This would require
several days, but it had its advantages, for I was eager to see the
sources of so famous a stream. Don Quixote, however, determined that
they must ford just here, and immediately began a sort of siege by
cutting down slender pines on the bank and building a corral barely
large enough to hold the flock when well pressed together. And as the
stream would form one side of the corral he believed that they could
easily be forced into the water.
In a few hours the inclosure was completed, and the silly animals were
driven in and rammed hard against the brink of the ford. Then the Don,
forcing a way through the compacted mass, pitched a few of the terrified
unfortunates into the stream by main strength; but instead of crossing
over, they swam about close to the bank, making desperate attempts to
get back into the flock. Then a dozen or more were shoved off, and the
Don, tall like a crane and a good natural wader, jumped in after them,
seized a struggling wether, and dragged it to the opposite shore. But no
sooner did he let it go than it jumped into the stream and swam back to
its frightened companions in the corral, thus manifesting sheep-nature
as unchangeable as gravitation. Pan with his pipes would have had no
better luck, I fear. We were now pretty well baffled. The silly
creatures would suffer any sort of death rather than cross that stream.
Calling a council, the dripping Don declared that starvation was now the
only likely scheme to try, and that we might as well camp here in
comfort and let the besieged flock grow hungry and cool, and come to
their senses, if they had any. In a few minutes after being thus let
alone, an adventurer in the foremost rank plunged in and swam bravely to
the farther shore. Then suddenly all rushed in pell-mell together,
trampling one another under water, while we vainly tried to hold them
back. The Don jumped into the thickest of the gasping, gurgling,
drowning mass, and shoved them right and left as if each sheep was a
piece of floating timber. The current also served to drift them apart; a
long bent column was soon formed, and in a few minutes all were over and
began baaing and feeding as if nothing out of the common had happened.
That none were drowned seems wonderful. I fully expected that hundreds
would gain the romantic fate of being swept into Yosemite over the
highest waterfall in the world.
As the day was far spent, we camped a little way back from the ford, and
let the dripping flock scatter and feed until sundown. The wool is dry
now, and calm, cud-chewing peace has fallen on all the comfortable band,
leaving no trace of the watery battle. I have seen fish driven out of
the water with less ado than was made in driving these animals into it.
Sheep brain must surely be poor stuff. Compare today’s exhibition with
the performances of deer swimming quietly across broad and rapid rivers,
and from island to island in seas and lakes; or with dogs, or even with
the squirrels that, as the story goes, cross the Mississippi River on
selected chips, with tails for sails comfortably trimmed to the breeze.
A sheep can hardly be called an animal; an entire flock is required to
make one foolish individual.