The Grand Circuit of the Yosemite. 151 



afternoon from the meadows we held our breath when 

 our trail led to the brink of the great Matterhorn Canon, 

 cut for miles deeper and deeper from the sharp peak fitly 

 named for the famous spire of the Alps. Down the steep 

 canon sides we picked our way to the night's camp beside 

 the stream, only to climb the opposite wall next day. 

 Winding around this ridge, suddenly we came on a point 

 where the whole vast slope of the Sierra range was in 

 view, from its snowy crest down the bewildering miles of 

 ridges and canons to the blue haze filling the great central 

 plain of California like a sea. 



As that great day drew toward its close, wx descended 

 another precipitous trail and our eyes filled with a new 

 picture. The loveliest of glacier lakes lay before us. 

 On one side rose a vast rock, a thousand feet high, shaped 

 like a battlemented castle guarding this mountain fastness, 

 snow in every crevice of its granite wall not too steep to 

 hold it, and snowfields under its shading walls sloping to 

 the crystal lake. On the other, the sunny side, among the 

 sheets of glacier-polished rock that tripped our feet, noble 

 trees had found a foot-hold and delicate flowers grew to 

 the very brink. As the sunset tints flooded sky and lake 

 and touched the snowy granite cliff with the rosy tender 

 alpine-glow, , all tongues were hushed, all hearts thrilled 

 with the heavenly scene. Then came the stars, which 

 from our pillows among the hollows of the rocks we 

 watched making long trails of splendor in the wonderful, 

 quivering mirror of crystal water. Fain would we have 

 lingered in this abode of the spirit, but we could only 

 wake with the dawn, not to miss the sunrise that again 

 flushed its pure cold gray and white and crystal into 

 living loveliness, like Pygmalion's statue receiving its 

 soul. 



That day's travel brought us to another deep tributary 

 canon, from whose brow we saw the mighty sweep of 

 the great Tuolumne Canon itself, deep in whose hidden 

 gorge we knew that the most adventurous of our party 

 were working their strenuous way. 



