rst at the
head there is abundance of visible energy, but it is speedily hushed and
concealed in divine repose, and its tranquil progress to the base of the
cliff is like that of a downy feather in a still room. Now observe the
fineness and marvelous distinctness of the various sun-illumined fabrics
into which the water is woven; they sift and float from form to form
down the face of that grand gray rock in so leisurely and unconfused a
manner that you can examine their texture, and patterns and tones of
color as you would a piece of embroidery held in the hand. Toward the
top of the fall you see groups of booming, comet-like masses, their
solid, white heads separate, their tails like combed silk interlacing
among delicate gray and purple shadows, ever forming and dissolving,
worn out by friction in their rush through the air. Most of these vanish
a few hundred feet below the summit, changing to varied forms of
cloud-like drapery. Near the bottom the width of the fall has increased
from about twenty-five feet to a hundred feet. Here it is composed of
yet finer tissues, and is still without a trace of disorder--air, water
and sunlight woven into stuff that spirits might wear.

So fine a fall might well seem sufficient to glorify any valley; but
here, as in Yosemite, Nature seems in nowise moderate, for a short
distance to the eastward of Tueeulala booms and thunders the great Hetch
Hetchy Fall, Wapama, so near that you have both of them in full view
from the same standpoint. It is the counterpart of the Yosemite Fall,
but has a much greater volume of water, is about 1700 feet in height,
and appears to be nearly vertical, though considerably inclined, and is
dashed into huge outbounding bosses of foam on projecting shelves and
knobs. No two falls could be more unlike--Tueeulala out in the open
sunshine descending like thistledown; Wapama in a jagged, shadowy gorge
roaring and plundering, pounding its way like an earthquake avalanche.

Besides this glorious pair there is a broad, massive fall on the main
river a short distance above the head of the Valley. Its position is
something like that of the Vernal in Yosemite, and its roar as it
plunges into a surging trout-pool may be heard a long way, though it
is only about twenty feet high. On Rancheria Creek, a large stream,
corresponding in position with the Yosemite Tenaya Creek, there is a
chain of cascades joined here and there with swift flashing plumes like
the one betw