in mind. She considered the lilies, and, while planting the plains

with sage and the hills with cedar, she has covered at least one
mountain with golden erythroniums and fritillarias as its crowning

glory, as if willing to show what she could do in the lily line even
here.

Looking southward from the south end of Salt Lake, the two northmost
peaks of the Oquirrh Range are seen swelling calmly into the cool sky

without any marked character, excepting only their snow crowns, and a
few weedy-looking patches of spruce and fir, the simplicity of their

slopes preventing their real loftiness from being appreciated. Gray,
sagey plains circle around their bases, and up to a height of a

thousand feet or more their sides are tinged with purple, which I
afterwards found is produced by a close growth of dwarf oak just

coming into leaf. Higher you may detect faint tintings of green on a
gray ground, from young grasses and sedges; then come the dark pine

woods filling glacial hollows, and over all the smooth crown of snow.
While standing at their feet, the other day, shortly after my

memorable excursion among the salt waves of the lake, I said: "Now I
shall have another baptism. I will bathe in the high sky, among cool

wind-waves from the snow." From the more southerly of the two peaks a
long ridge comes down, bent like a bow, one end in the hot plains, the

other in the snow of the summit. After carefully scanning the jagged
towers and battlements with which it is roughened, I determined to

make it my way, though it presented but a feebleadvertisement of its
floral wealth. This apparent barrenness, however, made no great

objection just then, for I was scarce hoping for flowers, old or new,
or even for fine scenery. I wanted in particular to learn what the

Oquirrh rocks were made of, what trees composed the curious patches of
forest; and, perhaps more than all, I was animated by a mountaineer's

eagerness to get my feet into the snow once more, and my head into the
clear sky, after lying dormant all winter at the level of the sea.

But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks. I
had not gone more than a mile from Lake Point ere I found the way

profusely decked with flowers, mostly compositae and purple
leguminosae, a hundred corollas or more to the square yard, with a

corresponding abundance of winged blossoms above them, moths and
butterflies, the leguminosae of the insect kingdom. This floweriness

is maintained with delightfulvariety all the way up through rocks and
bushes to the snow--violets, lilies, gilias, oenotheras, wallflowers,

ivesias, saxifrages, smilax, and miles of blooming bushes, chiefly
azalea, honeysuckle, brier rose, buckthorn, and eriogonum, all meeting

and blending in divine accord.
Two liliaceous plants in particular, Erythronium grandiflorum and

Fritillaria pudica, are marvelously beautiful and abundant. Never
before, in all my walks, have I met so glorious a throng of these fine

showy liliaceous plants. The whole mountainside was aglow with them,
from a height of fifty-five hundred feet to the very edge of the snow.

Although remarkablyfragile, both in form and in substance, they are
endowed with plenty of deep-seated vitality, enabling them to grow in

all kinds of places--down in leafy glens, in the lee of wind-beaten
ledges, and beneath the brushy tangles of azalea, and oak, and prickly

roses--everywhere forming the crowning glory of the flowers. If the
neighboring mountains are as rich in lilies, then this may well be

called the Lily Range.
After climbing about a thousand feet above the plain I came to a

picturesque mass of rock, cropping up through the underbrush on one of
the steepest slopes of the mountain. After examining some tufts of

grass and saxifrage that were growing in its fissured surface, I was
going to pass it by on the upper side, where the bushes were more

open, but a company composed of the two lilies I have mentioned were
blooming on the lower side, and though they were as yet out of sight,

I suddenly changed my mind and went down to meet them, as if attracted
by the ringing of their bells. They were growing in a small, nestlike

opening between the rock and the bushes, and both the erythronium and
the fritillaria were in full flower. These were the first of the

species I had seen, and I need not try to tell the joy they made.
They are both lowly plants,--lowly as violets,--the tallest seldom

exceeding six inches in height, so that the most searching winds that
sweep the mountains scarce reach low enough to shake their bells.

The fritillaria has five or six linear, obtuse leaves, put on
irregularly near the bottom of the stem, which is usually terminated

by one large bell-shaped flower; but its more beautiful companion, the
erythronium, has two radical leaves only, which are large and oval,

and shine like glass. They extend horizontally in opposite
directions, and form a beautiful glossy ground, over which the one

large down-looking flower is swung from a simple stem, the petals
being strongly recurved, like those of Lilium superbum. Occasionally a

specimen is met which has from two to five flowers hung in a loose
panicle. People oftentimes travel far to see curious plants like the

carnivorous darlingtonia, the fly-catcher, the walking fern, etc. I
hardly know how the little bells I have been describing would be

regarded by seekers of this class, but every true flower-lover who
comes to consider these Utah lilies will surely be well rewarded,

however long the way.
Pushing on up the rugged slopes, I found many delightful seclusions--moist

nooks at the foot of cliffs, and lilies in every one of them,
not growing close together like daisies, but well apart, with plenty

of room for their bells to swing free and ring. I found hundreds of
them in full bloom within two feet of the snow. In winter only the

bulbs are alive, sleeping deep beneath the ground, like field mice in
their nests; then the snow-flowers fall above them, lilies over

lilies, until the spring winds blow, and these winter lilies wither in
turn; then the hiding erythroniums and fritillarias rise again,

responsive to the first touches of the sun.
I noticed the tracks of deer in many places among the lily gardens,

and at the height of about seven thousand feet I came upon the fresh
trail of a flock of wild sheep, showing that these fine mountaineers

still flourish here above the range of Mormon rifles. In the planting
of her wild gardens, Nature takes the feet and teeth of her flocks

into account, and makes use of them to trim and cultivate, and keep
them in order, as the bark and buds of the tree are tended by

woodpeckers and linnets.
The evergreen woods consist, as far as I observed, of two species, a

spruce and a fir, standing close together, erect and arrowy in a
thrifty, compact growth; but they are quite small, say from six to

twelve or fourteen inches in diameter, and bout forty feet in height.
Among their giant relatives of the Sierra the very largest would seem

mere saplings. A considerableportion of the south side of the
mountain is planted with a species of aspen, called "quaking asp" by

the wood-choppers. It seems to be quite abundant on many of the
eastern mountains of the basin, and forms a marked feature of their

upper forests.
Wading up the curves of the summit was rather toilsome, for the snow,

which was softened by the blazing sun, was from ten to twenty feet
deep, but the view was one of the most impressively sublime I ever

beheld. Snowy, ice-sculptured ranges bounded the horizon all around,
while the great lake, eighty miles long and fifty miles wide, lay

fully revealed beneath a lily sky. The shorelines, marked by a ribbon
of white sand, were seen sweeping around many a bay and promontory in

elegant curves, and picturesque islands rising to mountain heights,
and some of them capped with pearly cumuli. And the wide prairie of

water glowing in the gold and purple of evening presented all the
colors that tint the lips of shells and the petals of lilies--the most

beautiful lake this side of the Rocky Mountains. Utah Lake, lying
thirty-five miles to the south, was in full sight also, and the river

Jordan, which links the two together, may be traced in silvery gleams
throughout its whole course.

Descending the mountain, I followed the windings of the main central
glen on the north, gathering specimens of the cones and sprays of the

evergreens, and most of the other new plants I had met; but the lilies
formed the crowning glory of my bouquet--the grandest I had carried in

many a day. I reached the hotel on the lake about dusk with all my
fresh riches, and my first mountain ramble in Utah was accomplished.

On my way back to the city, the next day, I met a grave old Mormon
with whom I had previously held some Latter-Day discussions. I shook

my big handful of lilies in his face and shouted, "Here are the true
saints, ancient and Latter-Day, enduring forever!" After he had