en decorations and medals. Their bark folds and drapes
them in mantles of royal purple, and their high crowns mingle gold with
green. The Grizzly Giant's crown is of a strange shape, and very
wonderful. He is alive, and looks at you, but he does not wish you to know
that; so, if you are too curious, he often pretends to be a castle,
ornamented with quantities of fantastic gargoyles. The castle has a
theatre, into which you can see; and it is fitted up with extraordinary
scenery. There is a museum of strange statues, too; headless torsos, and
arms thicker through than a man is long.

"The princes and princesses, who are the Grizzly Giant's family and help
him reign over his subjects, have to go and stand at a good distance, or
they would lose their majesty in comparison with him. When we had left the
horses (near a fascinating log-cabin in the woods), and Mr. Hilliard had
arranged for their comfort, we walked about, picking out the princes and
princesses and knowing quite well from the look of them which was which.
Some of the trees are commandingly masculine; others, though as immense,
graciously feminine.

"It sounds rather confusing to call the trees sometimes columns of a
cathedral or palace, sometimes royal people; but any one who has come to
visit them even once would understand. If I were to be here longer, I
should see them in a great many other different phases, I'm sure. And I
may perhaps see them again. But nothing will ever be the same. I have had
such thoughts to-day! I wanted to put each idea, small and big, on paper,
to remember; but I find that they won't let themselves be written down.
They are as intangible as the incense in this cathedral, as impossible to
put in black and white as it would be to jot down in notes the music that
pours out from the pipes of the unseen organ, or to paint the light that
streams through the cathedral windows. And what a magical light it is!
There are other trees in this forest, besides the Sequoias; but it is on
the redwoods alone that the light concentrates, just as limelight is
turned upon the leading characters of a stage drama. They burn with their
own ruddy fire, while their neighbour trees (overgrown with golden-green
moss that makes sleeves for outstretched arms, and gold embroidery for
dark drapery) gleam out among the redwoods' flaming pillars like lighted
candelabra. I shall see those lights behind my eyelids to-night, as I saw
the sunset light on Stonehenge; the