Life in the Sierra Madre 219 



friendly shelter of a big rock, I saw the fierce gusts 

 of wind strike the falling water, lift it from its course, 

 toss it in air like hair, whirling the strands so high that 

 for a moment they seemed lost; then as the wind passed 

 on they took shape and form again. Then the storm 

 would gather its forces and sweep into the rocky and 

 polished bowl worn away by time and eternity, and 

 swing the silvery mass like a gigantic pendulum, from 

 side to side, tossing it here and there as though 

 in play, to creep away and go roaring on through 

 the forest, up the slopes, raging into lateral cafions, 

 until I could no longer hear it and only trace it by the 

 bending trees silhouetted against the leaden sky on 

 the edge of the range. 



The southern mountains have not the vast and 

 extended forests that symbolise the Yosemite region, 

 but they have a wealth of trees in the mountain laurel, 

 buckthorn, lilac, the wild cherry, madrona, manzanita, 

 pines of several kinds, false hemlock, white cedar, juni- 

 per, oaks, and many more. 



All the cafions are filled with verdure; each is a 

 park, with all the glories of ferns and wild lilies and 

 a host of flowers that lure the stroller on and on into 

 the maze of gulfs and rivers of green which make up 

 the forests of the Sierra Madre. 



He who views the mountains from the valley fails 

 to appreciate their size; the wall of bare rock is 

 perhaps disappointing, but here is a range whose 

 exact prototype does not exist in any land austere, 



