Along the Foothills to Lake Chabot. 



175 



ALONG THE FOOTHILLS TO LAKE CHABOT. 



By W. Rob. Whyte. 



" Far fields look green." 



We travel far for adventure, which is ofttimes very- 

 tame, and forget the really interesting incidents in our 

 daily lives. We stay at home and mope, because we have 

 not time for a long vacation, when almost at our very 

 doors are beauties great as those we revel in at the 

 end of a weary journey. 



Strolls among the foothills from Piedmont to Lake 

 Chabot may give us opportunities in plenty for restoring 

 our health and delighting our eyes, without much ex- 

 penditure of either time or money. In the spring there 

 are wild flowers along the roadsides; the little streams 

 sparkle in the sun, and the overhanging trees, like vain 

 maidens, seem to glory in their beauty reflected in the 

 pools. 



Then in the open the sturdy oaks throw out their 

 gnarled and knotted arms, defying gravitation, and the 

 smooth, rolling hills are like Mother Earth baring her 

 bosom to the soothing rays of the glowing sun. These 

 oaks and hills strike the mind of the stranger to Cali- 

 fornian scenery the most forcibly. There is something so 

 peculiarly suggestive of rugged masculinity in the one 

 and of smoothly curving femininity in the other, that one 

 is tempted to deem them specially typical of the race that 

 has grown up among them. The characteristic "lighting" 

 of these hills is beautifully shown in the paintings of 

 Welsh. 



On the eastern slope of our foothills we first come upon 

 that most delicately beautiful of Californian trees, the 

 glorious redwood, the symmetry of whose growth must 

 ever appeal to the artist's sense of form, whether in part, 



