252 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOBNIA 



brushy tops were rocking and swirling in wild ec 

 stasy. Being accustomed to climb trees in making 

 botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in 

 reaching the top of this one, and never before did I 

 enjoy so noble an exhilaration of motion. The 

 slender tops fairly napped and swished in the pas 

 sionate torrent, bending and swirling backward 

 and forward, round and round, tracing indescriba 

 ble combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, 

 while I clung with muscles firm braced, like a bobo 

 link on a reed. 



In its widest sweeps my tree-top described an 

 arc of from twenty to thirty degrees, but I felt- 

 sure of its elastic temper, having seen others of 

 the same species still more severely tried bent 

 almost to the ground indeed, in heavy snows with 

 out breaking a fiber. I was therefore safe, and free 

 to take the wind into my pulses and enjoy the ex 

 cited forest from my superb outlook. The view 

 from here must be extremely beautiful in any 

 weather. Now my eye roved over the piny hills 

 and dales as over fields of waving grain, and felt 

 the light running in ripples and broad swelling un 

 dulations across the valleys from ridge to ridge, as 

 the shining foliage was stirred by corresponding 

 waves of air. Oftentimes these waves of reflected 

 light would break up suddenly into a kind of 

 beaten foam, and again, after chasing one another 

 in regular order, they would seem to bend forward 

 in concentric curves, and disappear on some hill 

 side, like sea-waves on a shelving shore. The 

 quantity of light reflected from the bent needles 

 was so great as to make whole groves appear as if 



