IN THE SIEKBA FOOT-HILLS 335 



shortly on the bank of a deep pool, where we were 

 to wait for him. This is a charming little lakelet 

 of unknown depth, never yet stirred by a breeze, and 

 its eternal calm excites the imagination even more 

 profoundly than the silvery lakes of the glaciers 

 rimmed with meadows and snow and reflecting 

 sublime mountains. 



Our guide, a jolly, rollicking Italian, led us into 

 the heart of the hill, up and down, right and left, 

 from chamber to chamber more and more magnifi 

 cent, all a-glitter like a glacier cave with icicle-like 

 stalactites and stalagmites combined in forms of 

 indescribable beauty. We were shown one large 

 room that was occasionally used as a dancing-hall ; 

 another that was used as a chapel, with natural 

 pulpit and crosses and pews, sermons in every 

 stone, where a priest had said mass. Mass-saying 

 is not so generally developed in connection with 

 natural wonders as dancing. One of the first 

 conceits excited by the giant Sequoias was to cut 

 one of them down and dance on its stump. We 

 have also seen dancing in the spray of Niagara; 

 dancing in the famous Bower Cave above Coulter- 

 ville ; and nowhere have I seen so much dancing 

 as in Yosemite. A dance on the inaccessible South 

 Dome would likely follow the making of an easy 

 way to the top of it. 



It was delightful to witness here the infinite 

 deliberation of Nature, and the simplicity of her 

 methods in the production of such mighty results, 

 such perfect repose combined with restless enthu 

 siastic energy. Though cold and bloodless as a 

 landscape of polar ice, building was going on in the 



