s and through the meadowed beauties of the Little
Yosemite. Ultimately, by ways uncharted, so far as we were aware, we
viewed the Merced Canyon where Lakes Washburn and Merced nestle in the
heart of a little-traveled fairyland, and thence struck 'cross-country
to the upper regions of the other great river of the Park, the Tuolumne.

All the Tuolumne Meadow country is sheer delight, for mountaineer,
fisherman, naturalist, and lover of the out-of-doors whose tastes are
unspecific; well has John Muir called it "the grand central camp-ground
of the Sierras." It is a vast meadow, hemmed in by a mountain region
beyond compare for expeditioning, with legions of royal trout ready for
the fly, and a vast flower garden maintained enticingly by Dame Nature
during the summer sunshine season.

The trip we took from the Meadows, again without trail, was down the
Tuolumne to Hetch-Hetchy Valley. The journey's start literally was
flower-strewn, and we tramped carefully lest we crush over-many of the
purple daisies and tiny violets dotting the dewy grass, while lupin
offered gentle resistance to our progress. First came the canyon of
Conness Creek, shaded with groves of hemlock, and neighbored by three
falls, the first of the countless cataracts which mark the wild river's
course through the rockbound gorge, to the valley of our destination,
miles below.

Beyond the falls the stream flows quietly for a space, between banks
lined with pines and deciduous trees. As Marion Randall Parsons has
quoted, here,

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs forever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.

And standing beside the white waters with the ground shaking underfoot
to the tune of their mighty onrush, with the meadows, trees, and flowers
round about, the awesome cliffs for guardians, and the bright blue sky
over all, it requires no visionary to conjure up legendary cities at
this river's end, for but half lend yourself to the notion and the
glorious Sierran stream becomes a beckoning highway to a land of
pleasant dreams.

[Illustration: "A vast flower garden maintained enticingly by Dame
Nature"

Copyright 1912 by Kiser Photo Co., Portland, Ore.]

[Illustration: Light and shadow in Yosemite]

Of the Tuolumnic canyon journey this same lover of the Sierras, Mrs.
Parsons, has sketched the following description:

It is impossible to do justice to the canyo