; the open field a safe
threshing floor for the grandest wheat harvests of the world; nectarines
and pomegranates and pears in abundance that perish for lack of enough
hands to pick; by a product in one year of six million five hundred
thousand gallons of wine proving itself the vineyard of this hemisphere;
African callas, and wild verbenas, and groves of oleander and nutmeg; the
hills red with five thousand cattle in a herd, and white with a hundred and
fifty thousand sheep in a flock; the neighboring islands covered with wild
birds' eggs, that enrich the markets, or sounding with the constant
"yoi-hoi," "yoi-hoi," of the sea-lions that tumble over them; a State that
might be called the "Central Park" of the world; the gulches of gold
pouring more than fifty million of dollars a year into the national lap;
lofty lakes, like Tahoe, set crystalline in the crown of the mountain;
waterfalls so weird that you do not wonder that the Indians think that
whosoever points his finger at them must die, and in one place the water
plunging from a height more than sixteen times greater than Niagara,--even
in such a country of marvels as this, there is nothing that makes you ask
more questions, or bow in profounder awe, or come away with more
interesting reminiscences than the world renowned California geysers.

There is a bang at your bed-room door at five-o'clock in the morning,
rousing you to go up and explore them; and after spending an hour or two in
wandering among them, you come back to the breakfast prepared by the model
landlord of California, jolly, obliging, intelligent, reasonable. As you
mount the stage for departure you give him a warm shake of the hand, and
suggest that it would be a grand thing if some one with a vein of poetry in
his mind and the faith of God in his heart would come round some day, and
passing among the geysers with a sprinkle of hot steam, would baptize them
with a Christian name.

Let us ascribe to Satan nothing that is grand, or creative, or wise. He
could not make one of these grains of alum. He could not blow up one of
these bubbles on the spring. He does some things that seem smart; but
taking him all in all, he is the biggest fool in the universe.

If the devil wants to boil his "Tea-kettle," or stir his "Mush-pot," or
whirl his "Grist-mill," let him do it in his own territory. Meanwhile, let
the water and the fire and the vapor, at the lift of David's orchestral
baton, praise the Lord!