THE SEQUOIA 303 



along the streams, and ruffled here and there with 

 patches of ledum and scarlet vaccinium. Around 

 the margin there is first a fringe of azalea and 

 willow bushes, colored orange yellow, enlivened 

 with vivid dashes of red cornel, as if painted. 

 Then up spring the mighty walls of verdure 

 three hundred feet high, the brown fluted pil- 

 lars so thick and tall and strong they seem fit to 

 uphold the sky ; the dense foliage, swelling for- 

 ward in rounded bosses on the upper half, vari- 

 ously shaded and tinted, that of the young trees 

 dark green, of the old yellowish. An aged 

 lightning-smitten patriarch standing a little for- 

 ward beyond the general line with knotty arms 

 outspread was covered with gray and yellow 

 lichens and surrounded by a group of saplings 

 whose slender spires seemed to lack not a single 

 leaf or spray in their wondrous perfection. Such 

 was the Kaweah meadow picture that golden 

 afternoon, and as I gazed every color seemed to 

 deepen and glow as if the progress of the fresh 

 sun-work were visible from hour to hour, while 

 every tree seemed religious and conscious of the 

 presence of God. A free man revels in a scene 

 like this and time goes by unmeasured. I stood 

 fixed in silent wonder or sauntered about shift- 

 ing my points of view, studying the physiog- 

 nomy of separate trees, and going out to the 

 different color patches to see how they were put 

 on and what they were made of, giving free ex- 



