ON FOOT IN THE YOSEMITE 



when I entered the Valley, was by this time 

 very much dustier. But the river, hastening from 

 the mountains to the sea, was close at my side, 

 garrulous of thoughts and fancies, histories and 

 dreams, and between it and the birds, the trees, 

 and the innumerable wild flowers, I must have 

 been a dull stick not to be abundantly entertained. 

 An ouzel, fishing for something on the flat, in- 

 clined surface of a broad boulder in midstream, 

 just where the rapids were wildest, was com- 

 pelled to spring into the air every minute or so as 

 a sudden big wave threatened to carry it away. 

 It seemed to be playing with death ; once fairly 

 caught in that mad whirl, and nothing could 

 save it. Again and again I looked to see it go, 

 as the angry waters clutched at it ; but it was 

 always a shaving too quick for them. Syringa 

 and calycanthus (** sweet-shrub " — faintly ill- 

 scented!) were in blossom, and the brilliant pink 

 godetia — a name which may suggest nothing to 

 the Eastern reader, but which to an old Califor- 

 nian like myself stands for all that is brightest 

 and showiest in parched wayside gardens — 

 never made a more effective display ; and all in 

 all, though I had walked over the longer part of 

 the same road within twenty-four hours, the day 

 was a pure delight. If it gains a little something 

 in the retrospect, it is all the more like a picture, 

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