ON FOOT IN THE YOSEMITE 



there is none to inform us — surviving only 

 within these extraordinarily narrow limits. For 

 my part, having seen the other three, I would 

 cheerfully have walked twice as far to look 

 upon, and put my hands upon, this fourth one, 

 in its characters the most strikingly original of 

 them all. 



The most exciting thing found at Inspiration 

 Point, however, not forgetting a transient even- 

 ing grosbeak, whose transiency, by the bye, ab- 

 solute novelty that he was, drove me well-nigh 

 frantic, for with a flash of white wings he was 

 gone almost before I could say I had seen him, 

 — my most exciting thing was no bird, not even 

 this proudly dressed, long-sought stranger, but a 

 bear. I was passing a thicket of low ceanothus 

 bushes, an almost impenetrable natural hedge 

 bordering the road, when I was startled by a sud- 

 den commotion as of some large animal scram- 

 bling hurriedly out of it on the farther side, 

 directly opposite. A deer, I thought, but the next 

 instant I saw it, — a brown bear ; and in another 

 instant my field-glass was focused upon it as it 

 ran or walked (I could not have told which five 

 minutes afterward — such virtue resides in eye- 

 witness testimony) away from me up the slope. 

 Then, at ten or twelve rods' distance, as I guessed, 

 it halted and faced about to look at the intruder; 

 195 



