登陆注册
15313800000045

第45章

THE VALLEY

Once upon a time I happened to be staying in a hotel room which had originally been part of a suite, but which was then cut off from the others by only a thin door through which sounds carried clearly.It was about eleven o'clock in the evening.

The occupants of that next room came home.Iheard the door open and close.Then the bed shrieked aloud as somebody fell heavily upon it.

There breathed across the silence a deep restful sigh.

"Mary," said a man's voice, "I'm mighty sorry Ididn't join that Association for Artificial Vacations.

They guarantee to get you just as tired and just as mad in two days as you could by yourself in two weeks."We thought of that one morning as we descended the Glacier Point Trail in Yosemite.

The contrast we need not have made so sharp.

We might have taken the regular wagon-road by way of Chinquapin, but we preferred to stick to the trail, and so encountered our first sign of civilization within an hundred yards of the brink.It, the sign, was tourists.They were male and female, as the Lord had made them, but they had improved on that idea since.The women were freckled, hatted with alpines, in which edelweiss--artificial, I think --flowered in abundance; they sported severely plain flannel shirts, bloomers of an aggressive and unnecessary cut, and enormous square boots weighing pounds.The men had on hats just off the sunbonnet effect, pleated Norfolk jackets, bloomers ditto ditto to the women, stockings whose tops rolled over innumerable times to help out the size of that which they should have contained, and also enormous square boots.The female children they put in skin-tight blue overalls.The male children they dressed in bloomers.Why this should be I cannot tell you.All carried toy hatchets with a spike on one end built to resemble the pictures of alpenstocks.

They looked business-like, trod with an assured air of veterans and a seeming of experience more extended than it was possible to pack into any one human life.We stared at them, our eyes bulging out.They painfully and evidently concealed a curiosity as to our pack-train.We wished them good-day, in order to see to what language heaven had fitted their extraordinary ideas as regards raiment.They inquired the way to something or other--I think Sentinel Dome.We had just arrived, so we did not know, but in order to show a friendly spirit we blandly pointed out A way.It may have led to Sentinel Dome for all I know.They departed uttering thanks in human speech.

Now this particular bunch of tourists was evidently staying at the Glacier Point, and so was fresh.But in the course of that morning we descended straight down a drop of, is it four thousand feet? The trail was steep and long and without water.During the descent we passed first and last probably twoscore of tourists, all on foot.A good half of them were delicate women,--young, middle-aged, a few gray-haired and evidently upwards of sixty.There were also old men, and fat men, and men otherwise out of condition.Probably nine out of ten, counting in the entire outfit, were utterly unaccustomed, when at home where grow street-cars and hansoms, to even the mildest sort of exercise.They had come into the Valley, whose floor is over four thousand feet up, without the slightest physical preparation for the altitude.They had submitted to the fatigue of a long and dusty stage journey.And then they had merrily whooped it up at a gait which would have appalled seasoned old stagers like ourselves.Those blessed lunatics seemed positively unhappy unless they climbed up to some new point of view every day.

I have never seen such a universally tired out, frazzled, vitally exhausted, white-faced, nervous community in my life as I did during our four days'

stay in the Valley.Then probably they go away, and take a month to get over it, and have queer residual impressions of the trip.I should like to know what those impressions really are.

Not but that Nature has done everything in her power to oblige them.The things I am about to say are heresy, but I hold them true.

Yosemite is not as interesting nor as satisfying to me as some of the other big box canons, like those of the Tehipite, the Kings in its branches, or the Kaweah.I will admit that its waterfalls are better.Otherwise it possesses no features which are not to be seen in its sister valleys.And there is this difference.In Yosemite everything is jumbled together, apparently for the benefit of the tourist with a linen duster and but three days' time at his disposal.He can turn from the cliff-headland to the dome, from the dome to the half dome, to the glacier formation, the granite slide and all the rest of it, with hardly the necessity of stirring his feet.Nature has put samples of all her works here within reach of his cataloguing vision.Everything is crowded in together, like a row of houses in forty-foot lots.The mere things themselves are here in profusion and wonder, but the appropriate spacing, the approach, the surrounding of subordinate detail which should lead in artistic gradation to the supreme feature--these things, which are a real and essential part of esthetic effect, are lacking utterly for want of room.

The place is not natural scenery; it is a junk-shop, a storehouse, a sample-room wherein the elements of natural scenery are to be viewed.It is not an arrangement of effects in accordance with the usual laws of landscape, but an abnormality, a freak of Nature.

同类推荐
  • 登夏州城楼

    登夏州城楼

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 弥勒菩萨所问本愿经

    弥勒菩萨所问本愿经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 澉水志

    澉水志

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 博异志

    博异志

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 受箓次第法信仪

    受箓次第法信仪

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 秋生辰菲恋

    秋生辰菲恋

    一时控制不住的情感,竟牵扯出一生的羁绊。年少时的方辰沉着冷静,不为女色所动,然而却在大学时与一名普通女孩邂逅,她叫鲁小菲(陆小菲),‘笨蛋’是她的座右铭,坚持不懈的倒追方式终于让方辰为其心动,可事实真相却是如此残酷,他与她是不可一世的仇敌,最终她被迫远离他乡,而方辰却甘心为其等待,无论空虚寂寥,也阻止不了他对她的思念......缘起缘灭,情深情浅,也许是命中注定他们还会再遇,然而,这一次的相遇却是命运与生命的交织......
  • 一生三舍

    一生三舍

    舍得舍得,没有“舍”哪来的“得”?这是普通人都能认识到的道重。你不能总是望天上掉馅饼,没有付出的回报是不长久、不现实的。“舍”的学问比我们表面年到的要深得多,它是一种立世存身的价值观念,一种实现人生目标的智慧,一种无所不明又无所不包的胸怀气度,一种身心和谐、主宰自己的人生的精神境界。
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 龙焰魔幻传说

    龙焰魔幻传说

    在交错与混乱的时空下,轩辕拓无意间碰触了交错之门,从此让他成为一个半数生活在现实、半数生活在魔幻世界中的奇异生活,在两地时空与混乱交错中,他生命线走进了交叉领域,开启了一个完全不同生活,从此纵笑人生路。
  • 时间之石

    时间之石

    神秘的幽兰花,庞然的巨蟒,古怪的石头……石头怎么能开花?花里怎么还孕育着生物?欲知谜底,敬请欣赏《时间之石》。
  • 整容女神

    整容女神

    二十年都受人白眼下生活,又肥又丑是这位豪门家女的标签。虽梦想美丽,而现实残酷。如若有一天,成为了万众睹目的女神。又会发生什么呢??
  • 全球直播之天庭降临

    全球直播之天庭降临

    (绝对精彩好书)江然没想到自己吹了个牛,竟然成为了人间代理,天庭要降临人间,妖魔鬼怪也会重现,而他要负起拯救世界的责任。“什么,系统,你还要我直播拯救地球?”“是的,宿主。”“我不干,我有隐私空间。”“宿主,全球直播会让你成为世界最大的明星。”“我不干。”“直播能让你享受亿万人的崇拜。”“我不干。”“你的粉丝有无数美女哦。”“行,我干!”“宿主,你不需要脱裤子……”
  • 世界大同

    世界大同

    盘古开辟天地后历经三皇治世,五帝定伦,华夏大陆进入帝尧时代。随着人皇神农的离世,新的争斗又重新开始。在这个波诡云谲的时代,人类少年庚辰在命运的支配下开始了一段惊心动魄的传奇历程,演绎一个充满传奇与魔幻的故事。
  • 锤打江山

    锤打江山

    初冬季节,傍晚十分。邵奇原本正在图书馆看书,一时沉浸在隋唐演义之中无法自拔,结果醒来之后成了李家四公子李元霸,隋朝第一好汉!……在牢笼中关了一夜以后,邵奇明白了人要往前看,既来之,则安之!看我李元霸“手拿瓮金锤,脚踏赶云烟”,虎躯一震,锤打江山!
  • 冷性校草:王俊凯只为让你爱上我

    冷性校草:王俊凯只为让你爱上我

    “他是不是不想来,毕竟他也不喜欢我,对吧!”——By柒雨默。