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Along the top, and extending a good way down, you see a pale, pearl-gray belt of snow; and below it a belt of blue and dark purple, marking the extension of the forests; and along the base of the range a broad belt of rose-purple and yellow, where lie the minor's gold-fields and the foot-hill gardens.

Below the main forest belt the trees likewise diminish in size, frost and burning drought repressing and blasting alike. The rose-purple zone along the base of the range comprehends nearly all the famous gold region of California. And here it was that miners from every country under the sun assembled in a wild, torrent-like rush to seek their fortunes.

Then, though the sun does not yet scorch the traveller, the shade is already a heavenly refreshment; and though a man is not parched with thirst, a cold draught from the Fountain of Egeria is more delicious than any wine, and under the ancient trees of the pagan grove the rose-purple cyclamens and the dark wood-violets are still blooming side by side.

Go out to Hopi Point or O'Neil's Point, and, as you emerge from the woods, you get a glimpse of a blue or rose-purple gulf opening before you. The solid ground ceases suddenly, and an aerial perspective, vast and alluring, takes its place; another heaven, countersunk in the earth, transfixes you on the brink. "Great God!" I can fancy the first beholder of it saying, "what is this?

The vivid crossbills, red and black and white, would come to the yard in flocks, and the quaker-coloured snow-buntings, and the big, trustful, childlike, pine grosbeaks, with the growing stain of rose-purple over their heads and necks. These kept Lidey interested, helping to pass the days that now, to her excited anticipations, seemed so long.

The staminate cones occur in clusters, about an inch wide, down among the leaves, and, as they are colored bright rose-purple, they give rise to a lively, flowery appearance little looked for in such a tree. Pines are commonly regarded as sky-loving trees that must necessarily aspire or die.

Forgetting what it is, one cannot help pronouncing the thistle beautiful, a close bunch of minute rose-purple flowers. But who could ever feel toward it as toward the gentian? Beauty is a thing not merely of form and color, but of memory and association. The thistle is an ugly customer.

But the circus performance did not affect them deeply. They admired the lady in black velvet with rose-purple legs who leapt so neatly on to the galloping horse; they watched the feats of strength and laughed at the clown. But they felt a little patronizing, they missed the sensational drama of the cinema.

On our arrival at the Grand Canon in the morning, after a night of travel and fasting, all the rest of us felt the need of refreshing ourselves and taking breakfast before we would even take a peep at the great rose-purple abyss out there a few steps from the hotel, but the teasing Scot jeered at us for thinking of eating when there was that sublime spectacle to be seen.

They saw the sun go down and, shade by shade, deepen and make radiant and then draw away with it the last touches of color rose-gold, rose-purple, and rose-gray. One mountain-top after another held its blush a few moments and lost it. It took long to gather them all but at length they were gone and the marvel of night fell.