d on unceasingly since the
lake came into existence.

As soon as the stream is fairly over the lake-lip it breaks into
cascades, never for a moment halting, and scarce abating one jot of its
glad energy, until it reaches the next filled-up basin, a mile below.
Then swirling and curving drowsily through meadow and grove, it breaks
forth anew into gray rapids and falls, leaping and gliding in glorious
exuberance of wild bound and dance down into another and yet another
filled-up lake basin. Then, after a long rest in the levels of Little
Yosemite, it makes its grandest display in the famous Nevada Fall. Out
of the clouds of spray at the foot of the fall the battered, roaring
river gropes its way, makes another mile of cascades and rapids, rests a
moment in Emerald Pool, then plunges over the grand cliff of the Vernal
Fall, and goes thundering and chafing down a boulder-choked gorge of
tremendous depth and wildness into the tranquil reaches of the old
Yosemite lake basin.

The color-beauty about Shadow Lake during the Indian summer is much
richer than one could hope to find in so young and so glacial a
wilderness. Almost every leaf is tinted then, and the golden-rods are in
bloom; but most of the color is given by the ripe grasses, willows, and
aspens. At the foot of the lake you stand in a trembling aspen grove,
every leaf painted like a butterfly, and away to right and left round
the shores sweeps a curving ribbon of meadow, red and brown dotted with
pale yellow, shading off here and there into hazy purple. The walls,
too, are dashed with bits of bright color that gleam out on the neutral
granite gray. But neither the walls, nor the margin meadow, nor yet the
gay, fluttering grove in which you stand, nor the lake itself, flashing
with spangles, can long hold your attention; for at the head of the lake
there is a gorgeous mass of orange-yellow, belonging to the main aspen
belt of the basin, which seems the very fountain whence all the color
below it had flowed, and here your eye is filled and fixed. This
glorious mass is about thirty feet high, and extends across the basin
nearly from wall to wall. Rich bosses of willow flame in front of it,
and from the base of these the brown meadow comes forward to the water's
edge, the whole being relieved against the unyielding green of the
coniferae, while thick sun-gold is poured over all.

During these blessed color-days no cloud darkens the sky, the winds are
gentle, and the l