g more celestial can I conceive. How
gently the winds blow! Scarce can these tranquil air-currents be called
winds. They seem the very breath of Nature, whispering peace to every
living thing. Down in the camp dell there is no swaying of tree-tops;
most of the time not a leaf moves. I don't remember having seen a
single lily swinging on its stalk, though they are so tall the least
breeze would rock them. What grand bells these lilies have! Some of them
big enough for children's bonnets. I have been sketching them, and would
fain draw every leaf of their wide shining whorls and every curved and
spotted petal. More beautiful, better kept gardens cannot be imagined.
The species is _Lilium pardalinum_, five to six feet high, leaf-whorls a
foot wide, flowers about six inches wide, bright orange, purple spotted
in the throat, segments revolute--a majestic plant.

_June 12._ A slight sprinkle of rain--large drops far apart, falling
with hearty pat and plash on leaves and stones and into the mouths of
the flowers. Cumuli rising to the eastward. How beautiful their pearly
bosses! How well they harmonize with the upswelling rocks beneath them.
Mountains of the sky, solid-looking, finely sculptured, their richly
varied topography wonderfully defined. Never before have I seen clouds
so substantial looking in form and texture. Nearly every day toward noon
they rise with visible swelling motion as if new worlds were being
created. And how fondly they brood and hover over the gardens and
forests with their cooling shadows and showers, keeping every petal and
leaf in glad health and heart. One may fancy the clouds themselves are
plants, springing up in the sky-fields at the call of the sun, growing
in beauty until they reach their prime, scattering rain and hail like
berries and seeds, then wilting and dying.

The mountain live oak, common here and a thousand feet or so higher, is
like the live oak of Florida, not only in general appearance, foliage,
bark, and wide-branching habit, but in its tough, knotty, unwedgeable
wood. Standing alone with plenty of elbow room, the largest trees are
about seven to eight feet in diameter near the ground, sixty feet high,
and as wide or wider across the head. The leaves are small and
undivided, mostly without teeth or wavy edging, though on young shoots
some are sharply serrated, both kinds being found on the same tree. The
cups of the medium-sized acorns are shallow, thick walled, and covered
with