y
life here with those I love. How delicious a dream! Of all the
places I have yet seen, this is the one I could longest enjoy
and love the most. Reclining thus in the shade, on the clean
white sand, the waves rippling at my feet, with thoughts of
Lake Tahoe and of my loved ones mingling in my mind, I fell
into a delicious doze. After my doze I returned to camp, to
dinner.

About 5 P.M. took another and last swim in the Lake.

Pomroy, who went to Carson, returned 7 P.M. After supper,
again singing in chorus, and then the glorious campfire.

CHAPTER E

JOHN VANCE CHENEY AT LAKE TAHOE

One of America's poets who long lived in California, and then, after
an honorable and useful sojourn as Director of one of the important
libraries of the East, returned to spend the remainder of his
days--John Vance Cheney--in 1882, made the trip to Lake Tahoe by stage
from Truckee, and, among other fine pieces of description, wrote the
following which appeared in _Lippincott's_ for August, 1883:

One more ascent has been made, one more turn rounded, and
behold, from an open elevation, close upon its shore, Lake
Tahoe in all its calm beauty bursts suddenly upon the sight.
Nestled among the snowy summit-peaks of the Sierra Nevada,
more than six thousand feet above sea-level, it lies in
placid transparency. The surrounding heights are all the more
pleasing to the eye because of their lingering winter-cover;
and as we gaze upon the Lake, unruffled by the
gentlest breeze, we marvel at the quiet,--almost
supernatural,--radiancy of the scene. Lakes in other lands
may present greater beauty of artificial setting,--beauty
dependent largely upon picturesqueness, where vineyards and
ivied ruins heighten the effect of natural environment,--but
for nature pure and simple, for chaste beauty and native
grandeur, one will hesitate before naming the rival of Lake
Tahoe. This singularly impressive sheet of water, one of
the highest in the world, gains an indescribable but
easily-perceived charm by its remoteness, its high, serene,
crystal isolation. Its lights and shades, its moods and
passions, are changing, rapid, and free as the way of the
wind.

A true child of nature, it varies ever, from hour to hour
enchanting with new and strange fascination. The thousand
voices of the lofty Sierra call to it, an