Before King Oberon’s bright diadem,
Scepter and mantle clasp’d with dewy gem.
Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns
From rushes green and brakes and cowslipped lawns.”
—Keats.
Here Jove himself treads not and forbears to hurl a thunderbolt.
A bird’s flight beyond this playground of the fairies, deep in the shady wood of the great sugar pines of Mariposa county are the giant Sequoias, “the big trees.” The Indians called them Waw Nonas, Big Trees.
Five thousand years ago they struck their tiny roots deep into the soil of the mountains. Before Columbus was born they tossed their giant branches against the mountain storms. They have seen the passing of the Indian and the coming of the white man.
OLDEST LOG CABIN IN THE SEQUOIA GROVE, MARIPOSA COUNTY CALIFORNIA. OLD COLUMBIA IN THE FOREGROUND.