THE SPELL OF THE YOSEMITE 



grand and austere features predominate, of course, 

 but underneath these and adorning them are many 

 touches of the idyllic and the picturesque. Its many 

 waterfalls fluttering like white lace against its verti- 

 cal granite walls, its smooth, level floor, its noble 

 pines and oaks, its open glades, its sheltering groves, 

 its bright, clear, winding river, its soft voice of many 

 waters, its flowers, its birds, its grass, its verdure, 

 even its orchards of blooming apple trees, all in- 

 closed in this tremendous granite frame — what an 

 unforgettable picture it all makes, what a blending 

 of the sublime and the homelike and familiar it all 

 is ! It is the waterfalls that make the granite alive, 

 and bursting into bloom as it were. What a touch 

 they give! how they enliven the scene! What music 

 they evoke from these harps of stone ! 



The first leap of Yosemite Falls is sixteen hun- 

 dred feet — sixteen hundred feet of a compact mass 

 of snowy rockets shooting downward and bursting 

 into spray around which rainbows flit and hover. 

 The next leap is four hundred feet, and the last 

 six hundred. We tried to get near the foot and in- 

 spect the hidden recess in which this airy spirit 

 again took on a more tangible form of still, run- 

 ning water, but the spray over a large area fell like a 

 summer shower, drenching the trees and the rocks, 

 and holding the inquisitive tourist off at a safe 

 distance. We had to beat a retreat with dripping 

 garments before we had got within fifty yards of the 



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