drawback. I wanted solitude always, and always had society. Companion- 

 ship one desires, to be sure, on a vacation trip, but not the sound of the 

 locomotive and the sight of its smoke-trail, not the voices of the summer 

 girl and her attendant swain, not the inane tootling of the tally-ho horn— - 

 things that in the Eastern hills and mountains one can never be sure of 

 escaping. 



What should I have said in those days if some kind power had offered 

 to reconstruct my woods and templed hills for me, in such wise as to rem- 

 edy these defects? had undertaken furthermore to throw in a few beauties 

 and sublimities such as I had never dreamed of having? had taken Switzer- 

 land, we will say, and removed all its hotels and impertinent villages, and 

 doubled and trebled it in extent, and run it down across New Hampshire 

 and Vermont and New York, where it would be handy to me — smoothing 

 down, incidentally, in the process, Its glaciers and cliffs, till they became 

 friendly, not fearful, and spreading over it forests grander than any others 

 In the world; offering me this — this bright virgin Alpine land — ^for my vaca- 

 tion wanderings? Yet something very much like that nature had done 

 for me, off on the other side of the continent — as I found, when I came to 

 the Pacific Coast. 



For here one has rainless summers (save for a passing shower 

 once a month or so, in the high altitudes); and a thousand great peaks and 

 unspoiled valleys, close at hand, and a million unsullied streams; and leap- 

 ing trout and jewel-like flowers; and every pleasure, every exhilaration, 

 every beauty, within one's easy reach. For there's a trail from every door 

 in California up into the heart of this. Pretty soon, when the last rains are 

 over and June is in the land, I shall load my wagon and turn my door-key 

 and start. We shall work down round the bay, through the fruit orchards, 

 and camp the first night near some wayside water supply, where there is a 

 cherry-tree handy and a generous-hearted cherry-tree owner. We shall 

 cook our steak and coffee in the sweet quiet California evening, and spread 

 our sleeping-bags under a golden sky, and know the passage of the night, 

 when we wake, by the march of the constellations. The next day we shall 

 climb over, or through, the range into another valley. Then another, and 

 then the brown foot-hills, California's gravel hills, painted now with dashes 

 of green and touched off with brilliant patches of flowers. Through these 

 we rise and fall for several days, exulting in our upward progress and in the 

 color and light. Then the lower mountains, where firs and sugar pines, 

 two or three hundred feet in height, make great parks, carpeted with aro- 

 matic bear-clover, through which the California tulips rise, the mariposas, 

 as brilliant as those of Holland's tulip-gardens, and far more beautiful and 

 wild. The red snow-plant burns by the tree boles too, and later tall whtte 

 lilies will show down the aisles there. 



Some days of this middle forest-belt, and then one rises into the re- 

 gion of glacial meadows and streams and lakes, seven thousand feet above 

 the sea, with peaks towering seven thousand more. And there one camps, 

 near some rushing river, and makes beds of boughs at the foot of a tree, 

 and gathers wood for the evening fire, and is at home. The weeks slip by 

 here and bring peace and rest. Once in a while a prospector passes, or 

 another camper, or a sheep-herder; but such visitors are welcome. Once 

 in a while a trip is taken, to some summit, or some fishing-ground, or to 

 explore a little dying glacier. But on the whole, one just lives and breathes 

 and gets fresh and happy and calm. Nothing jars. There's no sound but 

 the river and the trees and the cry at night of the coyote or the mountain 

 lion. There's no sight other than nature's pageantry. "Life greatens" 

 there, and one drops down home ag:ain sweetened and reconciled. Believe 

 one who has tried it. Come to California and try it for yourself. 



14 



