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It seemed so hard, so hard that she could do nothing to save her friends from the threatening ruin. She thought of her father, with a momentary flash of hope that made her spring from her seat with a half articulate cry of joy; but the hope faded as she remembered that he had probably just started for the Yosemite Valley, and that there was no knowing when or where a despatch would reach him.
And, as Mr. Burroughs says, "The world wants this knowledge seasoned with John Muir, not his mere facts. He could accumulate enough notes to fill Yosemite, yet that would be worth little. He has spent years studying and sketching the rocks, and noting facts about them, but you can't reconstruct beauty and sublimity out of mere notes and sketches. He must work his harvest into bread."
The watercourses brawled in their familiar channels, nor dreamed of ever shifting their regular tide. The wonders of the Yosemite and Calaveras were as yet unrecorded. The Holy Fathers noted little of the landscape beyond the barbaric prodigality with which the quick soil repaid the sowing.
Only One Grand Canyon. The ancient world had its seven wonders, but they were all the work of man. The modern world of the United States has easily its seven wonders Niagara, the Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Natural Bridge, the Mammoth Cave, the Petrified Forest and the Grand Canyon of Arizona but they are all the work of God.
Mariposa's favorite falls at the entrance to the valley made a single leap of hundreds of feet, and when the white spray was caught by the breezes and the sun, the lace-like mist, sparkling like diamonds, swayed gracefully in the winds like a royal bridal veil. "The highest of a series of cascades," Mariposa said, "was called 'The Yosemite Falls."
On these occasions, as was afterwards discovered, they fled to the almost inaccessible Yosemite Valley. Betrayed at last by a treacherous member of their own tribe, the Indians were surprised and nearly all destroyed. There is scarcely a resident in the valley except those connected with the running of the stages during the summer months, and those who are attached to the hotel.
I have occasionally observed large flocks on their travels crossing the summits of the Range at a height of 12,000 to 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, and even in so rare an atmosphere as this they seemed to be sustaining themselves without extra effort. Strong, however, as they are of wind and wing, they cannot fly over Yosemite walls, starting from the bottom.
Standing boldly out from the south wall is a strikingly picturesque rock called by the Indians, Kolana, the outermost of a group 2300 feet high, corresponding with the Cathedral Rocks of Yosemite both in relative position and form.
Why the traveling public should be subjected to this outrage is beyond me. We ground our weary way over the dusty road, oblivious to the scenery, until six o'clock, when we suddenly came to Inspiration Point, our first view of the great Valley. Yosemite Valley. The beauty of the scene to some extent compensated us for a beastly ride. Beyond us lay the great gorge known as the Yosemite.
They packed their precious sketches, and next morning we set out homeward bound, and in two days entered the Yosemite Valley from the north by way of Indian Cañon. The sustained grandeur of the High Sierra is strikingly illustrated by the great height of the passes.
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