of the vast ranges had fled from the parched sands, the dying,
shriveled shrubs, appealing vainly, mutely, for rain, and had taken
refuge in the mountains. They instinctively retreated from the death
of the desert and sheltered themselves in the green of the foot-hills.
North, east, south, and west, rain had fallen, but here, for miles on
either side of the little isolated station * * * the plain had so
baked in the semi-tropical sun until even the hardiest sage-brush took
on the color of the sand which billowed toward the eastern horizon
like an untraveled ocean.

MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in _The Giants._

APRIL 14.

The strong westerly winds drawing in through the Golden Gate sweep
with unobstructed force over the channel, and, meeting the outflowing
and swiftly moving water, kick up a sea that none but good boats can
overcome. To go from San Francisco to the usual cruising grounds the
channel must be crossed. There is no way out of it. And it is to this
circumstance, most probably, we are indebted for as expert a body of
yachtsmen as there is anywhere in the United States. Timid, nervous,
unskilled men cannot handle yachts under such conditions of wind and
waves. The yachtsmen must have confidence in themselves, and must have
boats under them which are seaworthy and staunch enough to keep on
their course, regardless of adverse circumstances.

CHARLES G. YALE,
in _Yachting in San Francisco Bay_, in _The Californian._

APRIL 15.

THE LIZARD.

I sit among the hoary trees
With Aristotle on my knees
And turn with serious hand the pages,
Lost in the cobweb-hush of ages;
When suddenly with no more sound
Than any sunbeam on the ground,
The little hermit of the place
Is peering up into my face--
The slim gray hermit of the rocks,
With bright, inquisitive, quick eyes,
His life a round of harks and shocks,
A little ripple of surprise.

Now lifted up, intense and still,
Sprung from the silence of the hill
He hangs upon the ledge a-glisten.
And his whole body seems to listen!
My pages give a little start,
And he is gone! to be a part
Of the old cedar's crumpled bark.
A mottled scar, a weather mark!

EDWIN MARKHAM,
in _Lincoln and Other Poems._

APRIL 16.

I lived in a region of remote sounds. On Russian Hill I looked down
as from a balloon; all there is of the stir of the city comes in
distant bells and whistles, changing their