es no features which are not to be seen in its
sister valleys. And there is this difference. In Yosemite everything
is jumbled together, apparently for the benefit of the tourist with a
linen duster and but three days' time at his disposal. He can turn
from the cliff-headland to the dome, from the dome to the half dome, to
the glacier formation, the granite slide and all the rest of it, with
hardly the necessity of stirring his feet. Nature has put samples of
all her works here within reach of his cataloguing vision. Everything
is crowded in together, like a row of houses in forty-foot lots. The
mere things themselves are here in profusion and wonder, but the
appropriate spacing, the approach, the surrounding of subordinate
detail which should lead in artistic gradation to the supreme
feature--these things, which are a real and essential part of esthetic
effect, are lacking utterly for want of room. The place is not natural
scenery; it is a junk-shop, a storehouse, a sample-room wherein the
elements of natural scenery are to be viewed. It is not an arrangement
of effects in accordance with the usual laws of landscape, but an
abnormality, a freak of Nature.

All these things are to be found elsewhere. There are cliffs which to
the naked eye are as grand as El Capitan; domes, half domes, peaks as
noble as any to be seen in the Valley; sheer drops as breath-taking as
that from Glacier Point. But in other places each of these is led up
to appropriately, and stands the central and satisfying feature to
which all other things look. Then you journey on from your cliff, or
whatever it happens to be, until, at just the right distance, so that
it gains from the presence of its neighbor without losing from its
proximity, a dome or a pinnacle takes to itself the right of
prominence. I concede the waterfalls; but in other respects I prefer
the sister valleys.

That is not to say that one should not visit Yosemite; nor that one
will be disappointed. It is grand beyond any possible human belief;
and no one, even a nerve-frazzled tourist, can gaze on it without the
strongest emotion. Only it is not so intimately satisfying as it
should be. It is a show. You do not take it into your heart. "Whew!"
you cry. "Isn't that a wonder!" then after a moment, "Looks just like
the photographs. Up to sample. Now let's go."

As we descended the trail, we and the tourists aroused in each other a
mutual interest. One husband was