osemite by way of Indian
Canon. Here we intend to stay several weeks,--a fine location from which
to make excursions about the great valley and its fountains. Glorious
days I'll have sketching, pressing plants, studying the wonderful
topography and the wild animals, our happy fellow mortals and neighbors.
But the vast mountains in the distance, shall I ever know them, shall I
be allowed to enter into their midst and dwell with them?

[Illustration: _The North and South Domes_]

We were pelted about noon by a short, heavy rainstorm, sublime thunder
reverberating among the mountains and canyons,--some strokes near,
crashing, ringing in the tense crisp air with startling keenness, while
the distant peaks loomed gloriously through the cloud fringes and sheets
of rain. Now the storm is past, and the fresh washed air is full of
the essences of the flower gardens and groves. Winter storms in Yosemite
must be glorious. May I see them!

Have got my bed made in our new camp,--plushy, sumptuous, and
deliciously fragrant, most of it _magnifica_ fir plumes, of course, with
a variety of sweet flowers in the pillow. Hope to sleep to-night without
tottering nerve-dreams. Watched a deer eating ceanothus leaves and
twigs.

_July 18._ Slept pretty well; the valley walls did not seem to fall,
though I still fancied myself at the brink, alongside the white,
plunging flood, especially when half asleep. Strange the danger of that
adventure should be more troublesome now that I am in the bosom of the
peaceful woods, a mile or more from the fall, than it was while I was on
the brink of it.

Bears seem to be common here, judging by their tracks. About noon we had
another rainstorm with keen startling thunder, the metallic, ringing,
clashing, clanging notes gradually fading into low bass rolling and
muttering in the distance. For a few minutes the rain came in a grand
torrent like a waterfall, then hail; some of the hailstones an inch in
diameter, hard, icy, and irregular in form, like those oftentimes seen
in Wisconsin. Carlo watched them with intelligent astonishment as they
came pelting and thrashing through the quivering branches of the trees.
The cloud scenery sublime. Afternoon calm, sunful, and clear, with
delicious freshness and fragrance from the firs and flowers and steaming
ground.

_July 19._ Watching the daybreak and sunrise. The pale rose and purple
sky changing softly to daffodil yellow and white, sunbeams pouring
through t