Up in the mountains the dewberries are ripe. They are about the size of currants, but farther down the slope they are larger. Blackberries are also plentiful, also the black raspberry, called by the Indians succotash.
The coniferous forests of the Sierra Nevada range are the most beautiful in the world. Here, where the granite domes which are so striking a feature of the Sierras, we find the most beautiful little meadows lying on the tops of the dividing ridges or on their sloping sides. These meadows are all aglow with wild flowers, rank columbines, stately larkspur, daisies and the lovely lupines, beds of blue and white violets, many strange grasses and beautiful sedges, and the glory of them all, the lily.
The magnificent sunset of the mountains, the afterglow resting on their summits, the many clouds of various hues, borrowing the tints of the rainbow,
“That glory mellower than a mist
Of pearl dissolved with amethyst,”
resting on the snowy peaks, lend an enchantment to the scene that might entice the elf king Oberon himself and all his crew of Pixies and Imps back to earth.
Doubtless God might have created a more magnificent range of mountains than the Sierras, but doubtless God never did.
“If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows thou wouldst forget,
Go to the woods and hills.”