oma on the west, and from Yolo on the
east--rough as they were in outline, dug out by winter streams, crowned
by cliffy bluffs and nodding pine-trees--were dwarfed into satellites by
the bulk and bearing of Mount Saint Helena. She over-towered them by
two-thirds of her own stature. She excelled them by the boldness of her
profile. Her great bald summit, clear of trees and pasture, a cairn of
quartz and cinnabar, rejected kinship with the dark and shaggy
wilderness of lesser hilltops.

II

THE PETRIFIED FOREST

We drove off from the Springs Hotel about three in the afternoon. The
sun warmed me to the heart. A broad, cool wind streamed pauselessly down
the valley, laden with perfume. Up at the top stood Mount Saint Helena,
a bulk of mountain, bare atop, with tree-fringed spurs, and radiating
warmth. Once we saw it framed in a grove of tall and exquisitely
graceful white oaks, in line and colour a finished composition. We
passed a cow stretched by the roadside, her bell slowly beating time to
the movement of her ruminating jaws, her big red face crawled over by
half a dozen flies, a monument of content.

A little farther, and we struck to the left up a mountain road, and for
two hours threaded one valley after another, green, tangled, full of
noble timber, giving us every now and again a sight of Mount Saint
Helena and the blue hilly distance, and crossed by many streams, through
which we splashed to the carriage-step. To the right or the left, there
was scarce any trace of man but the road we followed; I think we passed
but one ranchero's house in the whole distance, and that was closed and
smokeless. But we had the society of these bright streams--dazzlingly
clear, as is their wont, splashing from the wheels in diamonds, and
striking a lively coolness through the sunshine. And what with the
innumerable variety of greens, the masses of foliage tossing in the
breeze, the glimpses of distance, the descents into seemingly
impenetrable thickets, the continual dodging of the road, which made
haste to plunge again into the covert, we had a fine sense of woods,
and spring-time, and the open air.

Our driver gave me a lecture by the way on Californian trees--a thing I
was much in need of, having fallen among painters who know the name of
nothing, and Mexicans who know the name of nothing in English. He taught
me the madrona, the manzanita, the buckeye, the m