TIME AND CHANGE 



foot of the fall. At first I was surprised at the vol- 

 ume of water that came hurrying out of the hidden 

 recess of dripping rocks and trees — a swiftly flow- 

 ing stream, thirty or forty feet wide, and four or 

 five feet deep. How could that comparatively nar- 

 row curtain of white spray up there give birth to 

 such a full robust stream? But I saw that in making 

 the tremendous leap from the top of the precipice, 

 the stream was suddenly drawn out, as we stretch 

 a rubber band in our hands, and that the solid and 

 massive current below was like the rubber again re- 

 laxed. The strain was over, and the united waters 

 deepened and slowed up over their rocky bed. 



Yosemite for a home or a camp, the Grand Canon 

 for a spectacle. I have spoken of the robin I saw 

 in Yosemite Valley. Think how forlorn and out of 

 place a robin would seem in the Grand Canon! 

 What would he do there? There is no turf for him 

 to inspect, and there are no trees for him to perch 

 on. I should as soon expect to find him amid the 

 pyramids of Egypt, or amid the ruins of Karnak. 

 The bluebird was in the Yosemite also, and the 

 water-ouzel haunted the lucid waters. 



I noticed a peculiarity of the oak in Yosemite that 

 I never saw elsewhere^ — a fluid or outflowing condi- 

 tion of the growth aboveground, such as one usually 

 sees in the roots of trees — so that it tended to en- 



1 I have since observed the same trait in the oaks in Georgia 

 — probably a characteristic of this tree in southern latitudes. 



78 



