The Sequoia National Park 



Bv Mark Daxiki.s 

 Ex-Gcneral Siipcriiitcndciit of Xational Parks 



THERE are few who have not suffered attacks of 

 wanderlust. In some it takes a disguised form 

 and calls for consultation to arrive at the proper 

 diagnosis. In others that strange seasonal restlessness 

 can be recognized at once, without the aid of so much as 

 a thermometer, as the itching foot, as it is called out 

 West. WliLther the desire to roam the earth is prompted 

 by an instinct inherited from our nomadic forbears or by 

 those local conditions which so frequently make travel 

 advisable, it is certain that once the desire is temporarily 

 gratified the disease becomes permanent and can be cured 

 only by amputation. 



Of the numerous and varied types of attractions which 

 lure the weary Inisiness man with waking dreams of 

 travels in other climes, three seem to be possessed of a 



cliarm of singular virulence — the sea, the desert and the 

 mountains. Perhaps it is because in these three widely 

 different fields we find that nature, in her sublime sim- 

 plicitv, leads us back with steady hand to that closer rela- 

 tion with the Creator which childhood's dreams are made 

 of. Perhaps it is that in great expanse men's souls 

 stretch out and the veil of human pettiness is sometimes 

 lifted. Whatever may be the reason, it is certain that once 

 a deeper draught of either of these three cups is taken, 

 there ensues a thirst for more that knows no quenching. 



About the sea I cannot speak with knowledge born of 

 personal experience, but I have never known a deep-sea 

 sailor who had breathed the breath of the ocean deep 

 into his lungs who could put the longing for the sea 

 entirelv out of his heart. .\s for the desert and th.e 



Photo by Mark DanU-ls. LOOKING WEST FROM MT. WUITXEV 



This view is from the point on the upper slopes of the great mountain known as The Chimney. Near Mt. Whitney are four great canyons, one 

 of which is half a mile deeper than the canyon of the Colorado in Arizona, and many forests of the giant Sequoias. 



