Golden composite covered all the ground from the Coast Range to the Sierra like a stratum of curdled sunshine, in which I reveled for weeks, watching the rising and setting of their innumerable suns; then I gave myself up to be borne forward on the crest of the summer wave that sweeps annually up the Sierra and spends itself on the snowy summits.
At the Big Tuolumne Meadows I remained more than a month, sketching, botanizing, and climbing among the surrounding mountains.

The mountaineer with whom I then happened to be camping was one of those remarkable men one so frequently meets in California, the hard angles and bosses of whose characters have been brought into relief by the grinding excitements of the gold period, until they resemble glacial landscapes.

But at this late day, my friend's activities had subsided, and his craving for rest caused him to become a gentle shepherd and literally to lie down with the lamb.
Recognizing the unsatisfiable longings of my Scotch Highland instincts, he threw out some hints concerning Bloody Canon, and advised me to explore it.

"I have never seen it myself," he said, "for I never was so unfortunate as to pass that way.

But I have heard many a strange story about it, and I warrant you will at least find it wild enough." Then of course I made haste to see it.