cascades, dropping sheer over dizzy falls amid the spray, and ascending
with the same fearlessness and ease, seldom seeking to lessen the
steepness of the acclivity by beginning to ascend before reaching the
base of the fall. No matter though it may be several hundred feet in
height he holds straight on, as if about to dash headlong into the
throng of booming rockets, and darts abruptly up ward, and, after
alighting at the top of the precipice to rest a moment, proceeds to
feed and sing.

JOHN MUIR,
in _The Mountains of California._

OCTOBER 10.

Who can hear the wild song of the ouzel and not feel an answering
thrill? Perched upon a rock in the midst of the rapids, he is the
incarnation of all that is untamed, a wild spirit of the mountain
stream, as free as a raindrop or a sunbeam. How solitary he is, a lone
little bird, flitting from rock to rock through the desolate gorge,
like some spirit in a Stygian world. Yet he sings continually as he
takes his solitary way along the stream, and bursts of melody, so eerie
and sylvan as to fire the imagination, come to the ear, sounding above
the roar of the torrent. Like Orpheus, he seeks in the nether world of
that wild gorge for his Eurydice, now dashing through the rapids, now
peering into some pool, as if to discern her fond image in its depths,
and calling ever to lure her thence from that dark retreat up into the
world of light and love.

C.H. KIRKHAM,
in _In the Open._

OCTOBER 11.

TO LOS ANGELES.

May this great city of Los Angeles, destined to be a mighty metropolis,
flanked by the mountains and the sea, grow in the spirit of charity and
toleration between man and man, and in the fear and love of God. May
our city ever remain a fair virgin, sought for by the valiant sons from
all lands, adorned with the wealth of the golden orange and caressed by
the clinging vine.

(_Fiach Fionn_) LAURENCE BRANNICK.

OCTOBER 12.

Like most of the early cities of the coast, Los Angeles owes its origin
to the proselyting enthusiasm of the Spanish priesthood. The Mission of
San Gabriel had been in existence ten years, and it had gathered
several thousand Indians under its guardianship when it was proposed to
establish a pueblo in that vicinity in order that a temporal
development might proceed together with the spiritual. Had there been
no mission at San Gabriel to hold the savages in check by the force of
a religious awe, and to lead them to industri