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