THE SKETCHER

Otago Witness, Issue 956, 16 May 1889, Page 31

THE SKETCHER

THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.

One hundred and fifty miles 'nearly due east of San Francisco, where the ! middle ranges of the Sierra Nevada rise from the San Joaquin Valley in the grand wooded outlines, sweep upon sweep, to a height of 13,000f fc above the sea, there is hewn from east to west a profound ravine between two confronting barriers of precipitous rock. Over a space varying from three-quatters of a mile to two miles in width, and along a line some six miles in extent, these grim, natural fortifications look out at each other and down upon a peaceful valley slutiibering in the deep trench, three-quarters of 4 mile in sheer depth, below. These parallel rocky walls, while retaining their uniform abruptness and height, are shaped into stormy outlines of towers and pinnacles and dotties, the •intervening space is sown with great trees and flowering shrubs, a paltry plantation when viewed from above,, but a > mighty forest-growth below, and traversed by the coils of a winding river. Conceive this startling combination of features, and you will still have but a dim and inadequate likeness of the Yosemite Valley. But what is perhaps the chief characteristic of the Yosemite remains to be told, It has been called

THE VALLEY OF THE WATER FALLS, and herein consists its distinction from all other remarkable valleys, so far as I know, in the world. Straight over these mountain walls, not down the bed of M converging ravines, but from upland valleys unseen above and beyond, come toppling the heavensent waters that supply the shining River of Mercy (Rio de la Merced) murmuring so musically below. Almost may we say —

Not in entire forgefcfulnees, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clonds of glory do they come From God who is their home.

For, as with a rush and a leap they spring from their craggy ledges, their forms are interwined with rainbows and aureoled with light. Thus they descend, soft vaporous shapes, spray-clad, that glimmer along the aerial stairway like spirits passing up and down

A JACOB'S LADDEB

from heaven to earth, until the phantasy is shivered in the tumult and thunder of the plunge upon the echoing platform or in the deep hollow pools at the base. From a distance of miles these waterfalls may be seen huDg like white streamers against the mountain walls. Even there a faint whisper sings in the air, deepening as we advance to a hum and a roar, till about their feet the atmosphere is filled and chocked with the stunning shocks of sound. They, vary considerably in height, being sometimes intercepted in their descent or broken up into more than one cascade. Fifteen hundred feel is the height of the' highest or upper Yosemite fall ; but this is the uppermost of a trio of cascades, one above the other, the united fall of which amounts to TWO THOUSAND SIX HUNDBED FEET, and when seen from a distance can be mistaken for a single uninterrupted fall. Of these falls perhaps the most beautiful at all times and seasons is that to which the pioneer tourists of 1855. gave the name of the Bridal Veil. It falls sheer for 900 ft, the rocky rim from which it leaps being outlined as sharply as a razor's edge against the. sky. The name is not ill-applied, for .^as the breeze catches the descending jets, when not in full volume, it puffs them outwards from the rock and wafts them. in gauzy festoons from side to side. Hither and thither float the misty folds like a diaphanous veil of tulle. Lower down the water, pouring in miniature cataracts from the ledges, alone shows what is the quantity and what the texture of the material. The Indian name for this 'waterfall was Pohono, or

THE SPIRIT OF THE EVIL WIND.

They connected with it some mysterious and baleful influence, hearing 'the mutter of spirit voices in the sound, and scenting the cold breath of a destroying angel in the breeze of the • enchanted fall. To pass it by was of ill omen, to sleep near it was perilous, to point the finger of scorn at it was death. An Indian .woman, .who once fell from the slippery ■ ledge at the top and was dashed to pieces, was believed .to have been swept away by the Evil One. Unlike the artistic though rationalising temper of the ancient Greeks, who recognised in the legendary carrying off of Orithyia by Boreas, the North Wind, the metaphor of a tempestuous love, the Indian mind, plunged in sad superstition, could see nothing in a similar fatality but the revengeful finger of doom. At all times a rich forest-growth adorns the valley; and it is only by comparison with

THE CELEBBATED BIG TEEES that grow in the neighbourhood some 30 miles away, that these noble Yoseaaite stems, 170 ft to 220 ft high; straight as an oblelisk and tall as a tower, are not considered giants in the land. The roadway winds in and out of the solemn sylvan aisles, the light scarcely breaking through the clustered leafy capitals and shedding itself in dust of gold upon the big cones and needles that litter the forest floor. Here are yellow pines and sugar pines, the red or incense cedar, the Douglas spruce, and three varieties of silver fir. Here, toorare the more familiar figures of the common oak and. the evergreen oak, the quaking aspen and the willow, alders,' poplars, maples, and laurel. The majority of these continue their bounty right through the summer ; but it is in THE UNDERGBOWTH AN® SHKUBS AND

PLOWEES

that the visitor in the spring finds such an additional delight. Then the open spaces are gay with the festal bloom of the manzanita, with azaleas, yellow and white and pink, with the soft plumes of the Galifornian lilac, with dogswood and primroses, with the syringa, the butterfly tulip, and the white lily. The trails are bright with their colours and sweet with their fragrance, and all Nature smiles. Being eyen at its base as much as 4000 ft above the sea, the Yosemite Valley enjoys a very equable temperature, the thermometer seldom pointing to more than 86deg in summe*. The orientation of the cutting' is moreover the source of a twofold charm. Running, as.the valley does, - almost due 'east and west,: the sea-breezea that pour in at •: ■ >"■ '>'... i ' . '<.:

' » ; JTHB GOLDEN GATE . come swiftly over the intervening plains, and

blow an incessant draught from end to end of the gorge. ' ' To the same accident of site we owe the splendours of sunrise and sunset. Did the 7alley face north and south, one face of it would be perpetually in shadow. As it is, when the morning sun has topped tke eastern heights, its rays run swiftly from peak to peak right down the ■ full length of the ravine, which in a few moments is flooded with the golden glory. Similarly as the declining orb? sinks opposite the western doorway, both, faces of , rocks, from El Oapitan to the Half Dome, attend the dying couch and are gilded with the .vanishing beam. If it be asked in what features, other than the broad structural outlines which have already been described, the wonder of- the Yosemite consists, I would reply, in the solemn uniformity of colouring, in

THE NAKEDNESS OF THE EOCKY FRONTS, and in the absolutely vertical cleavage from cap to base. There is none of that gorgeous variety of colouring that results from different rock-strata, or, as in the famous canon of the Yellowstone, from the chemical action of mineral deposits and boiling springs. The rock is everywhere an ashengrey granite, which in places where the surface layer" has scaled off becomes a pale, or, under the sunlight, a glittering white. JOnly here and there, where through the long years streams, too thin to make a waterfall, have trickled down" the bare face, are black splashes and streaks like THE DISHEVELLED TRESSES OF A WOMAN'S

HAIE. ' But the very absence of variety, the gleaming monochrome of stone, has an indefinable grandeur of its own, and strikes the spectator from below with a peculiar awe. The two other features I have mentioned are closely connected ; for it is the verticality of the cliffs that is responsible for the almost total' absence of vegetation upon their faces. Now and then a solitary pine has secured a precarious foothold upon some tiny ledge ; but for the most part not even Nature is allowed to plant an excrescence. Where the sheer walls are interspersed with slopes, these lend whatever of contrast and colour may be needed, being sufficiently clad with undergrowth and shrubs. — The Hon. Geo. Ourzon, M.P., in "Macmillan's Magazine."