limate, and on the summit
discovered creeping mats of the arctic willow overgrown with silky
catkins, and patches of the dwarf vaccinium with its round flowers
sprinkled in the grass like purple hail; while in every direction the
landscape stretched sublimely away in fresh wildness--a manuscript
written by the hand of Nature alone.

At length, as I entered the pass, the huge rocks began to close around
in all their wild, mysterious impressiveness, when suddenly, as I was
gazing eagerly about me, a drove of gray hairy beings came in sight,
lumbering toward me with a kind of boneless, wallowing motion like
bears.

I never turn back, though often so inclined, and in this particular
instance, amid such surroundings, everything seemed singularly
unfavorable for the calm acceptance of so grim a company. Suppressing my
fears, I soon discovered that although as hairy as bears and as crooked
as summit pines, the strange creatures were sufficiently erect to belong
to our own species. They proved to be nothing more formidable than Mono
Indians dressed in the skins of sage-rabbits. Both the men and the women
begged persistently for whisky and tobacco, and seemed so accustomed to
denials that I found it impossible to convince them that I had none to
give. Excepting the names of these two products of civilization, they
seemed to understand not a word of English; but I afterward learned that
they were on their way to Yosemite Valley to feast awhile on trout and
procure a load of acorns to carry back through the pass to their huts on
the shore of Mono Lake.

Occasionally a good countenance may be seen among the Mono Indians, but
these, the first specimens I had seen, were mostly ugly, and some of
them altogether hideous. The dirt on their faces was fairly stratified,
and seemed so ancient and so undisturbed it might almost possess a
geological significance. The older faces were, moreover, strangely
blurred and divided into sections by furrows that looked like the
cleavage-joints of rocks, suggesting exposure on the mountains in a
castaway condition for ages. Somehow they seemed to have no right place
in the landscape, and I was glad to see them fading out of sight down
the pass.

Then came evening, and the somber cliffs were inspired with the
ineffable beauty of the alpenglow. A solemn calm fell upon everything.
All the lower portion of the canon was in gloaming shadow, and I crept
into a hollow near one of the upper lakelets to s