CALIFORNIA by John Muir: My First Summer in the Sierra, Picturesque California, The Mountains of California, The Yosemite & Our National Parks (Illustrated Edition). John Muir

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СКАЧАТЬ and flocks of the arctic bluebird, which make lively pictures among the snow-laden mistleberries. About six species of ducks are found among the winter birds, as the river is never wholly frozen over. Among these are the mallard and beautiful wood duck, though now less abundant than formerly on account of being so often shot at.

      Flocks of wandering geese usually visit the valley in March or April, driven down by hunger, or weariness, or stress of weather while on their way across the range. They come in by the river canyon, but oftentimes are sorely bewildered in trying to get out again. I have frequently seen them try to fly over the walls until tired out and compelled to re-alight. They would rise from the meadow or river, wheel around in a spiral until a height of 400 feet or thereabouts was reached, then form their ranks and fly straight toward the wall as if resolved to fly over it. But Yosemite magnitudes seem to be as deceptive to geese as to men, for they would suddenly find themselves in danger of dashing against the face of the cliff, much nearer the bottom than the top. Then turning in confusion, they would try again and again until exhausted. I have occasionally observed large flocks on their travels crossing the summits of the range at a height not less than 14,000 feet above the level of the sea, and even in so rare an atmosphere as this they seemed to be sustaining themselves without extra effort. Strong, however, as they are of wind and wing, they cannot fly over Yosemite walls, starting from the bottom.

      Eagles hunt all winter along the northern cliffs and down the river canyon, and there are always plenty of owls for echoes.

      Toward the end of March carex sprouts on the warmer portions of the meadows are about an inch high, the aments of the alders along the banks of the river are nearly ripe, the libocedrus is sowing its pollen, willows put forth their silky catkins, and a multitude of happy insects and swelling buds proclaim the promise of spring.

      Wild strawberries are ripe in May; the early flowers are in bloom; the birds are busy in the groves, and frogs in the shallow meadow pools.

      In June and July the Yosemite summer is in all its glory. It is the prime time of plant-bloom and water-bloom, and the lofty domes and battlements are then bathed in divine purple light.

      August is the season of ripe nuts and berries--raspberries, blackberries, thimbleberries, gooseberries, shadberries, blackcurrants, puckery choke cherries, pine-nuts, etc., offering a royal feast to squirrels, bears, Indians, and birds of every feather. All the common orchard fruits as well as the cereal, grow well in the valley, and have been successfully cultivated there for many years by the old pioneer, Lamon, the first of all the Yosemite settlers who cordially and unreservedly adopted the valley as home. In the spring of 1859 he loaded an old horse with fruit-trees and a scant supply of provisions, and made his way into the valley from Mariposa, built himself a cabin beneath the shadow of the great Half Dome, cleared a fertile spot on the left bank of Tenaya Creek, and planted an orchard and garden; toiling faithfully as he was able, under hardships and discouragements not easily appreciated now that the valley has been opened to the world. His friends assured him that his trees would never bear fruit in that deep valley surrounded by snowy mountains, that he could raise nothing, sell nothing, and eventually starve. But year after year he held on undaunted, clearing and stirring the virgin soil, planting and pruning; remaining alone winter and summer with marvelous constancy. He was surprised to find the weather so sunful and kindly. When storms were blowing he lay snug in his cabin, pushing out now and then to keep the snow from his door and to listen to the thunder of the avalanches.

      Late in the autumn, while Lamon thus lived alone, three Indians, who were hunting deer on the headwaters of the Bridal Veil Creek, killed a man by the name of Gould, who was on his way from Mono to Mariposa, and hid the body in a dense part of the forest beneath leaves and bark. The division of the spoils--gun, blankets, and money--brought on a quarrel, and one of the Indians confessed the murder. Lamon being the only white man known to be in the Yosemite region, it was feared that he was the victim, and two men were immediately sent into the valley to seek him. This was in January, and the appearance of the two weary messengers coming up the valley in midwinter was a grand surprise. After learning their errand, he assured his friends that nowhere else had he ever felt so safe or so happy as in his lonely Yosemite home.

      After the fame of Yosemite had spread far and wide, and he had acquired sufficient means to enjoy a long afternoon of life in easy affluence, he died. He was a fine, erect, whole-souled man more than six feet high. No stranger to hunger and weariness, he was quick to feel for others, and many there be, myself among the number, who knew his simple kindness that gained expression in a thousand small deeds. A block of Yosemite granite, chiselled and lettered, marks his grave, and some of his fruit trees still live, but his finest monument is in the hearts of his friends. He sleeps in a beautiful spot among trees and flowers near the foot of the Yosemite Fall, and every crystal pressing on his coffin vibrates in harmony with its sublime music.

      Before the Sierra was explored, Yosemite was generally regarded as a solitary, unrelated wonder. But many other valleys like it have been discovered, which occupy the same relative positions on the flank of the range, were formed by the same forces in the same kind of granite, and have similar waterfalls, sculpture, and vegetation. One of these, called "Hetch Hetchy" by the Indians, lies in a north-westerly direction from Yosemite, at a distance of about eighteen miles, and is easily accessible by a trail that leaves the Big Oak Flat road at Bronson Meadows, a few miles below Crane Flat.

      As the Merced River flows through Yosemite, so does the Tuolumne through Hetch Hetchy. The bottom of Yosemite is about 4,000 feet above the level of the sea, the bottom of Hetch Hetchy is about 3,800 feet, and in both the walls are of grey granite, and rise precipitously from a level bottom, with but little debris along their bases.

      Standing boldly out from the south wall, near the lower end of the valley, is the rock Kolàna, considerably over 2,000 feet in height, and seeming still to bid defiance to the mighty glacier that once pressed over and around it. This is the most strikingly picturesque rock in the valley, forming the outermost of a group that corresponds with the Cathedral group of Yosemite. Facing Kolàna, on the opposite side of the valley, there is a rock 1,800 feet in height which presents a sheer massive front like El Capitan, and over its brow flows a stream that makes, without exception, the most graceful fall I have ever seen. Tuccoolala it is called by the Indians. From the brow of the cliff it leaps clear and free for a thousand feet, then breaks up into a ragged foaming sheet of cascades among the boulders of an earthquake talus. Towards the end of summer it shrinks and vanishes, since its fountain streams do not reach back to the lasting snows of the summits.

      When I last saw it in June, 1872, it was indescribably beautiful. The only fall that I know of with which it may fairly be compared is the Yosemite Bridal Veil, but it excels even that fall in floating, swaying gracefulness, and tender repose. For if we attentively observe the Bridal Veil, even toward the end of summer when the wind blows aside the fine outer folds of spray, dense, comet-shaped masses may be seen shooting with tremendous energy, revealing the stem fixedness of purpose with which its waters seek the new world below. But from the top of the cliff all the way down the snowy form of the Hetch Hetchy Veil is in perfect repose, like a plume of white cloud becalmed in the depths of the sky. Moreover, the Bridal Veil inhabits a shadow-haunted recess, inaccessible to the main wind-currents of the valley, and has to depend for its principal wind gestures upon broken waves and whirlpools of air that oftentimes compel it to rock and bend in a somewhat fitful, teasing manner; but the Hetch Hetchy Veil, floating free in the open valley, is ever ready to offer graceful compliance to the demands and suggestions of calm or storm. Looking across the valley on a bright, calm day about the beginning of June, the view is surpassingly glorious. The Hetch Hetchy El Capitan is seen rising out of a dense growth of shining live oaks, glowing with sun-gold from its green grovy base to its brow in the blue air. At intervals along its dizzy edge a few venturesome pines are seen looking wistfully outward, and before its sunny face, immediately in front of you, Tuccoolala waves her silvery scarf, gloriously embroidered, and burning with white sun-fire in every fibre. In approaching the brink of the precipice her waters flow fast but confidingly, and at their first arching leap into the air a little СКАЧАТЬ