xt
to ears of Indian corn the most beautiful fuel I've ever seen. The nuts,
the Don tells me, are gathered in large quantities by the Digger Indians
for food. They are about as large and hard-shelled as hazelnuts--food
and fire fit for the gods from the same fruit.

_June 5._ This morning a few hours after setting out with the crawling
sheep-cloud, we gained the summit of the first well-defined bench on the
mountain-flank at Pino Blanco. The Sabine pines interest me greatly.
They are so airy and strangely palm-like I was eager to sketch them, and
was in a fever of excitement without accomplishing much. I managed to
halt long enough, however, to make a tolerably fair sketch of Pino
Blanco peak from the southwest side, where there is a small field and
vineyard irrigated by a stream that makes a pretty fall on its way down
a gorge by the roadside.

After gaining the open summit of this first bench, feeling the natural
exhilaration due to the slight elevation of a thousand feet or so, and
the hopes excited concerning the outlook to be obtained, a magnificent
section of the Merced Valley at what is called Horseshoe Bend came full
in sight--a glorious wilderness that seemed to be calling with a
thousand songful voices. Bold, down-sweeping slopes, feathered with
pines and clumps of manzanita with sunny, open spaces between them, make
up most of the foreground; the middle and background present fold beyond
fold of finely modeled hills and ridges rising into mountain-like masses
in the distance, all covered with a shaggy growth of chaparral, mostly
adenostoma, planted so marvelously close and even that it looks like
soft, rich plush without a single tree or bare spot. As far as the eye
can reach it extends, a heaving, swelling sea of green as regular and
continuous as that produced by the heaths of Scotland. The sculpture of
the landscape is as striking in its main lines as in its lavish richness
of detail; a grand congregation of massive heights with the river
shining between, each carved into smooth, graceful folds without leaving
a single rocky angle exposed, as if the delicate fluting and ridging
fashioned out of metamorphic slates had been carefully sandpapered. The
whole landscape showed design, like man's noblest sculptures. How
wonderful the power of its beauty! Gazing awe-stricken, I might have
left everything for it. Glad, endless work would then be mine tracing
the forces that have brought forth its features, its roc