ON FOOT IN THE YOSEMITE 



was always alone, and, let it sound how it will, I 

 liked my company. 



Such a feast of walking as the two months gave 

 me ! I shall never have another to compare with 

 it. The Valley itself is four thousand feet above 

 sea-level, and many of my jaunts took me nearly 

 or quite as much higher. If the trails were steep, 

 the exhilaration was so much the greater. At the 

 worst I had only to stop a minute or two now 

 and then to breathe and look about me, upward 

 or downward, or across the way. There might 

 be a bird near by, a solitaire by good luck, or a 

 mountain quail ; or two or three fox sparrows ^ 

 might be singing gayly from the chaparral ; or 

 as many pigeons might go by me along the moun- 

 tain-side, speeding like the wind ; or, not improb- 

 ably, a flock of big black swifts would be doub- 

 ling and turning in crazy, lightning-like zigzags 

 over my head. Who would not pause a minute 

 to confer with strangers of such quality ? And if 

 attractions of this more animated kind failed, 

 there would likely enough be broad acres of 

 densely growing manzanita bushes on either side 

 of the way, every one of the million branches 

 hanging full of tiny bells, graceful in shape as 



1 These must be Mr. Muir's " song sparrows," I suppose, 

 since, strangely enough, no kind of song sparrow, properly 

 so called, has ever been reported from the Valley. 



