THE WILDERNESS 35 



years that we call history ? What other vitality 

 do we know, animal or vegetable, equal to 

 theirs, seeing that they live even after coaches 

 are driven through their trunks ? The outpost 

 sentinels of the Californian forest are mere 

 shrubs, a hundred feet or so in stature balsam, 

 cedar, fir, and pine but some of the veterans 

 measure a hundred feet round their base and 

 tower nearer three hundred feet than two into 

 the clear atmosphere of that beautiful region. 

 Even here the visitor is impressed with the 

 monotony inseparable from pine forests, which 

 are green all the year and irresponsive to the 

 changing seasons. The balm of their resin 

 may be wholesome, yet is less agreeable than 

 the mingled bouquet of English woods. Their 

 groves are not made happy with the song of 

 little birds. Yet they are a grand and exalting 

 sight, these noblest trees on earth, and it is 

 well that the American Government has 

 stationed patrols of cavalry to see that no 

 injury is done them. Thus, a national posses- 

 sion, may they stand for all time against the 

 greed of the builder ! 



The wilderness, as figured in these pages, 

 embraces all the wild places, from the dried-up 

 veldt under the Southern Cross to the eternal 

 snows of the Himalaya, and another aspect of 

 it is the desert, the Garden of Allah, which, 

 according to a tradition of the Bedawin, Allah 



