completely covered with thick, furry mosses, and the white fall shines

against the green like a silver instrument in a velvet case. Here
come the Gabriel lads and lassies from the commonplace orange groves,

to make love and gather ferns and dabble away their hot holidays in
the cool pool. They are fortunate in finding so fresh a retreat so

near their homes. It is the Yosemite of San Gabriel. The walls,
though not of the true Yosemite type either in form or sculpture, rise

to a height of nearly two thousand feet. Ferns are abundant on all
the rocks within reach of the spray, and picturesque maples and

sycamores spread a grateful shade over a rich profusion of wild
flowers that grow among the boulders, from the edge of the pool a mile

or more down the dell-like bottom of the valley, the whole forming a
charming little poem of wildness--the vestibule of these shaggy

mountain temples.
The foot of the fall is about a thousand feet above the level of the

sea, and here climbing begins. I made my way out of the valley on the
west side, followed the ridge that forms the western rim of the Eaton

Basin to the summit of one of the principal peaks, thence crossed the
middle of the basin, forcing a way over its many subordinate ridges,

and out over the eastern rim, and from first to last during three days
spent in this excursion, I had to contend with the richest, most

self-possessed and uncompromising chaparral I have every enjoyed since
first my mountaineering began.

For a hundred feet or so the ascent was practicable only by means of
bosses of the club moss that clings to the rock. Above this the ridge

is weathered away to a slender knife-edge for a distance of two or
three hundred yards, and thence to the summit it is a bristly mane of

chaparral. Here and there small openings occur, commanding grand
views of the valley and beyond to the ocean. These are favorite

outlooks and resting places for bears, wolves, and wildcats. In the
densest places I came upon woodrat villages whose huts were from four

to eight feet high, built in the same style of architecture as those
of the muskrats.

The day was nearly done. I reached the summit and I had time to make
only a hasty survey of the topography of the wild basin now outspread

maplike beneath, and to drink in the rare loveliness of the sunlight
before hastening down in search of water. Pushing through another

mile of chaparral, I emerged into one of the most beautiful parklike
groves of live oak I ever saw. The ground beneath was planted only

with aspidiums and brier roses. At the foot of the grove I came to
the dry channel of one of the tributary streams, but, following it

down a short distance, I descried a few specimens of the scarlet
mimulus; and I was assured that water was near. I found about a

bucketful in a granite bowl, but it was full of leaves and beetles,
making a sort of brown coffee that could be rendered available only by

filtering it through sand and charcoal. This I resolved to do in case
the night came on before I found better. Following the channel a mile

farther down to its confluence with another, larger tributary, I found
a lot of boulder pools, clear as crystal, and brimming full, linked

together by little glistening currents just strong enough to sing.
Flowers in full bloom adorned the banks, lilies ten feet high, and

luxuriant ferns arching over one another in lavishabundance, while a
noble old live oak spread its rugged boughs over all, forming one of

the most perfect and most secluded of Nature's gardens. Here I
camped, making my bed on smooth cobblestones.

Next morning, pushing up the channel of a tributary that takes its
rise on Mount San Antonio, I passed many lovely gardens watered by

oozing currentlets, every one of which had lilies in them in the full
pomp of bloom, and a rich growth of ferns, chiefly woodwardias and

aspidiums and maidenhairs; but toward the base of the mountain the
channel was dry, and the chaparral closed over from bank to bank, so

that I was compelled to creep more than a mile on hands and knees.
In one spot I found an opening in the thorny sky where I could stand

erect, and on the further side of the opening discovered a small pool.
"Now, HERE," I said, "I must be careful in creeping, for the birds of

the neighborhood come here to drink, and the rattlesnakes come here to
catch them." I then began to cast my eye along the channel, perhaps

instinctively feeling a snaky atmosphere, and finally discovered one
rattler between my feet. But there was a bashful look in his eye, and

a withdrawing, deprecating kink in his neck that showed plainly as
words could tell that he would not strike, and only wished to be let

alone. I therefore passed on, lifting my foot a little higher than
usual, and left him to enjoy his life in this his own home.

My next camp was near the heart of the basin, at the head of a grand
system of cascades from ten to two hundred feet high, one following

the other in close succession and making a total descent of nearly
seventeen hundred feet. The rocks above me leaned over in a

threatening way and were full of seams, making the camp a very unsafe
one during an earthquake.

Next day the chaparral, in ascending the eastern rim of the basin,
was, if possible, denser and more stubbornly bayoneted than ever. I

followed bear trails, where in some places I found tufts of their hair
that had been pulled out in squeezing a way through; but there was

much of a very interesting character that far overpaid all my pains.
Most of the plants are identical with those of the Sierra, but there

are quite a number of Mexican species. One coniferous tree was all I
found. This is a spruce of a species new to me, Douglasii

macrocarpa.[14]
My last camp was down at the narrow, notched bottom of a dry channel,

the only open way for the life in the neighborhood. I therefore lay
between two fires, built to fence out snakes and wolves.

From the summit of the eastern rim I had a glorious view of the valley
out to the ocean, which would require a whole book for its

description. My bread gave out a day before reaching the settlements,
but I felt all the fresher and clearer for the fast.

XII
Nevada Farms[15]

To the farmer who comes to this thirsty land from beneath rainy skies,
Nevada seems one vast desert, all sage and sand, hopelessly

irredeemable now and forever. And this, under present conditions, is
severely true. For notwithstanding it has gardens, grainfields, and

hayfields generouslyproductive, these compared with the arid
stretches of valley and plain, as beheld in general views from the

mountain tops, are mere specks lying inconspicuously here and there,
in out-of-the-way places, often thirty or forty miles apart.

In leafy regions, blessed with copious rains, we learn to measure the
productivecapacity of the soil by its natural vegetation. But this

rule is almost wholly inapplicable here, for, notwithstanding its
savage nakedness, scarce at all veiled by a sparse growth of sage and

linosyris[16], the desert soil of the Great Basin is as rich in the
elements that in rainy regions rise and ripen into food as that of any

other State in the Union. The rocks of its numerous mountain ranges
have been thoroughly crushed and ground by glaciers, thrashed and

vitalized by the sun, and sifted and outspread in lake basins by
powerful torrents that attended the breaking-up of the glacial period,

as if in every way Nature had been making haste to prepare the land
for the husbandman. Soil, climate, topographical conditions, all that

the most exacting could demand, are present, but one thing, water, is
wanting. The present rainfall would be wholly inadequate for

agriculture, even if it were advantageously distributed over the
lowlands, while in fact the greater portion is poured out on the

heights in sudden and violent thundershowers called "cloud-bursts,"
the waters of which are fruitlessly swallowed up in sandy gulches and

deltas a few minutes after their first boisterous appearance. The
principal mountain chains, trending nearly north and south, parallel

with the Sierra and the Wahsatch, receive a good deal of snow during
winter, but no great masses are stored up as fountains for large

perennial streams capable of irrigating considerable areas. Most of
it is melted before the end of May and absorbed by moraines and

gravelly taluses, which send forth small rills that slip quietly down
the upper canyons through narrow strips of flowery verdure, most of

them sinking and vanishing before they reach the base of their
fountain ranges. Perhaps not one in ten of the whole number flow out

into the open plains, not a single drop reaches the sea, and only a
few are large enough to irrigate more than one farm of moderate size.

It is upon these small outflowing rills that most of the Nevada
ranches are located, lying countersunk beneath the general level, just