Letters to a Friend 



This Yosemite stream is flowing rapidly here 

 in a small flowery meadow, not meandering like 

 a meadow stream but going straight on with 

 ripples and rapids. It derives its waters from 

 a basin corresponding in every respect with its 

 own sublimity and loneliness. 



July i yth. We are now camped in a splendid 

 grove of spruce only one mile from the Yosemite 

 wall. The stream that goes spraying past us 

 in the rocks reaches the valley by that canon 

 between the Yosemite Falls and the North 

 Dome. I left my companions in charge of the 

 sheep for the last three days and have had a 

 most heavenly piece of life among the domes 

 and falls and rocks of the north side and upper 

 end of the valley. 



Yesterday I found the stream that flows 

 through Crystal Lake past the South Dome and 

 followed it three miles among cascades and 

 rapids to the dome. Were you at the top or bot 

 tom of the upper Yosemite Falls? Were you 

 at the top of the Nevada Falls ? Were you in 

 that Adiantum cave by the Vernal Falls ? Have 

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