now caressing rugged rock-brows with great gentleness,
or, wandering afar over the tops of the forests, touching the spires of
fir and pine with their soft silken fringes as if trying to tell the
glad news of the coming of snow.

The first view was perfectly glorious. A massive cloud of pure pearl
luster, apparently as fixed and calm as the meadows and groves in the
shadow beneath it, was arched across the Valley from wall to wall, one
end resting on the grand abutment of El Capitan, the other on Cathedral
Rock. A little later, as I stood on the tremendous verge overlooking
Mirror Lake, a flock of smaller clouds, white as snow, came from the
north, trailing their downy skirts over the dark forests, and entered
the Valley with solemn god-like gestures through Indian Canyon and over
the North Dome and Royal Arches, moving swiftly, yet with majestic
deliberation. On they came, nearer and nearer, gathering and massing
beneath my feet and filling the Tenaya Canyon. Then the sun shone free,
lighting the pearly gray surface of the cloud-like sea and making it
glow. Gazing, admiring, I was startled to see for the first time the
rare optical phenomenon of the "Specter of the Brocken." My shadow,
clearly outlined, about half a mile long, lay upon this glorious white
surface with startling effect. I walked back and forth, waved my arms
and struck all sorts of attitudes, to see every slightest movement
enormously exaggerated. Considering that I have looked down so many
times from mountain tops on seas of all sorts of clouds, it seems
strange that I should have seen the "Brocken Specter" only this once.
A grander surface and a grander stand-point, however, could hardly
have been found in all the Sierra.

After this grand show the cloud-sea rose higher, wreathing the Dome, and
for a short time submerging it, making darkness like night, and I began
to think of looking for a camp ground in a cluster of dwarf pines. But
soon the sun shone free again, the clouds, sinking lower and lower,
gradually vanished, leaving the Valley with its Indian-summer colors
apparently refreshed, while to the eastward the summit-peaks, clad in
new snow, towered along the horizon in glorious array.

Though apparently it is perfectly bald, there are four clumps of pines
growing on the summit, representing three species, Pinus albicaulis,
P. contorta and P. ponderosa, var. Jeffreyi--all three, of course,
repressed and storm-beaten. The alpine spiraea grows h