376 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



that way, too, for the mountains above here are 

 just full of honey in the summer-time, and one of 

 my neighbors down here says that he will let me 

 have a whole lot of hives, on shares, to start with. 

 You see I 've a good thing ; I ? m all right now." 

 All this prospective affluence in the sunken, 

 boulder-choked flood-bed of a mountain-stream! 

 Leaving the bees out of the count, most fortune- 

 seekers would as soon think of settling on the 

 summit of Mount Shasta. Next morning, wishing 

 my hopeful entertainer good luck, I set out on my 

 shaggy excursion. 



About half an hour's walk above the cabin, I 

 came to " The Fall," famous throughout the valley 

 settlements as the finest yet discovered in the San 

 Gabriel Mountains. It is a charming little thing, 

 with a low, sweet voice, singing like a bird, as it 

 pours from a notch in a short ledge, some thirty- 

 five or forty feet into a round mirror-pool. The 

 face of the cliif back of it, and on both sides, is 

 smoothly covered and embossed with mosses, 

 against which the white water shines out in showy 

 relief, like a silver instrument in a velvet case. 

 Hither come the San Gabriel lads and lassies, to 

 gather ferns and dabble away their hot holidays in 

 the cool water, glad to escape from their common 

 place palm-gardens and orange-groves. The delicate 

 maidenhair grows on fissured rocks within reach 

 of the spray, while broad-leaved maples and syca 

 mores cast soft, mellow shade over a rich profusion 

 of bee-flowers, growing among boulders in front of 

 the pool the fall, the flowers, the bees, the ferny 

 rocks, and leafy shade forming a charming little 



