At turns of the road, on the higher points, canyons disclosed themselves far away, gigantic grooves in the landscape, deep blue in the distance, opening one into another, ocean-deep, silent, huge, and suggestive of colossal primeval forces held in reserve.

At their bottoms they were solid, massive; on their crests they broke delicately into fine serrated edges where the pines and redwoods outlined their million of tops against the high white horizon.

Here and there the mountains lifted themselves out of the narrow river beds in groups like giant lions rearing their heads after drinking.

The entire region was untamed.

In some places east of the Mississippi nature is cosey, intimate, small, and homelike, like a good-natured housewife.