ON FOOT IN THE YOSEMITE 



of men and geese alike are unaccustomed to such 

 perpendicular altitudes. A mountain three thou- 

 sand feet high is a thing to which they are more 

 or less used, but a vertical surface of anything 

 like the same elevation stands far outside of all 

 ordinary experience. El Capitan is nothing but 

 a cliff, and a cliff — well, any goose knows what 

 a cliff is like. Rise about so far, and you are 

 over it. 



For myself, I sympathize with the geese. The 

 rock was in sight from my tent-door for eight 

 weeks, and grand as it was at first, and grander 

 still as it became, I could never make it look 

 half a mile high. It was especially alluring to 

 me in the evening twilight. At that hour, the 

 day's tramp over, I loved to lie back in my 

 camp-chair and look and look at its noble out- 

 line against the bright western sky. Professor 

 Whitney says that it can be seen from the San 

 Joaquin Valley, fifty or sixty miles away ; but I 

 am now farther away than that several times 

 over, and I can see it at this minute with all dis- 

 tinctness — not only the rock itself, but the 

 loose fringe of low trees along its top, with the 

 afterglow shining through them. There would 

 be comparatively little profit in traveling if we 

 could see things only so long as we remain within 

 sight of them. 



171 



