Among Their Giant Relatives Of The Sierra The Very Largest Would Seem
Mere Saplings.
A considerable portion of the south side of the
mountain is planted with a species of aspen, called "quaking asp" by
the wood-choppers.
It seems to be quite abundant on many of the
eastern mountains of the basin, and forms a marked feature of their
upper forests.
Wading up the curves of the summit was rather toilsome, for the snow,
which was softened by the blazing sun, was from ten to twenty feet
deep, but the view was one of the most impressively sublime I ever
beheld. Snowy, ice-sculptured ranges bounded the horizon all around,
while the great lake, eighty miles long and fifty miles wide, lay
fully revealed beneath a lily sky. The shorelines, marked by a ribbon
of white sand, were seen sweeping around many a bay and promontory in
elegant curves, and picturesque islands rising to mountain heights,
and some of them capped with pearly cumuli. And the wide prairie of
water glowing in the gold and purple of evening presented all the
colors that tint the lips of shells and the petals of lilies - the most
beautiful lake this side of the Rocky Mountains. Utah Lake, lying
thirty-five miles to the south, was in full sight also, and the river
Jordan, which links the two together, may be traced in silvery gleams
throughout its whole course.
Descending the mountain, I followed the windings of the main central
glen on the north, gathering specimens of the cones and sprays of the
evergreens, and most of the other new plants I had met; but the lilies
formed the crowning glory of my bouquet - the grandest I had carried in
many a day. I reached the hotel on the lake about dusk with all my
fresh riches, and my first mountain ramble in Utah was accomplished.
On my way back to the city, the next day, I met a grave old Mormon
with whom I had previously held some Latter-Day discussions. I shook
my big handful of lilies in his face and shouted, "Here are the true
saints, ancient and Latter-Day, enduring forever!" After he had
recovered from his astonishment he said, "They are nice."
The other liliaceous plants I have met in Utah are two species of
zigadenas, Fritillaria atropurpurea, Calochortus Nuttallii, and three
or four handsome alliums. One of these lilies, the calochortus,
several species of which are well known in California as the "Mariposa
tulips," has received great consideration at the hands of the Mormons,
for to it hundreds of them owe their lives. During the famine years
between 1853 and 1858, great destitution prevailed, especially in the
southern settlements, on account of drouth and grasshoppers, and
throughout one hunger winter in particular, thousands of the people
subsisted chiefly on the bulbs of the tulips, called "sego" by the
Indians, who taught them its use.
Liliaceous women and girls are rare among the Mormons. They have seen
too much hard, repressive toil to admit of the development of lily
beauty either in form or color. In general they are thickset, with
large feet and hands, and with sun-browned faces, often curiously
freckled like the petals of Fritillaria atropurpurea. They are fruit
rather than flower - good brown bread. But down in the San Pitch
Valley at Gunnison, I discovered a genuine lily, happily named Lily
Young. She is a granddaughter of Brigham Young, slender and graceful,
with lily-white cheeks tinted with clear rose, She was brought up in
the old Salt Lake Zion House, but by some strange chance has been
transplanted to this wilderness, where she blooms alone, the "Lily of
San Pitch." Pitch is an old Indian, who, I suppose, pitched into the
settlers and thus acquired fame enough to give name to the valley.
Here I feel uneasy about the name of this lily, for the compositors
have a perverse trick of making me say all kinds of absurd things
wholly unwarranted by plain copy, and I fear that the "Lily of San
Pitch" will appear in print as the widow of Sam Patch. But, however
this may be, among my memories of this strange land, that Oquirrh
mountain, with its golden lilies, will ever rise in clear relief, and
associated with them will always be the Mormon lily of San Pitch.
X
The San Gabriel Valley[12]
The sun valley of San Gabriel is one of the brightest spots to be
found in all our bright land, and most of its brightness is wildness - wild south sunshine in a basin rimmed about with mountains and hills.
Cultivation is not wholly wanting, for here are the choices of all the
Los Angeles orange groves, but its glorious abundance of ripe sun and
soil is only beginning to be coined into fruit. The drowsy bits of
cultivation accomplished by the old missionaries and the more recent
efforts of restless Americans are scarce as yet visible, and when
comprehended in general views form nothing more than mere freckles on
the smooth brown bosom of the Valley.
I entered the sunny south half a month ago, coming down along the cool
sea, and landing at Santa Monica. An hour's ride over stretches of
bare, brown plain, and through cornfields and orange groves, brought
me to the handsome, conceited little town of Los Angeles, where one
finds Spanish adobes and Yankee shingles meeting and overlapping in
very curious antagonism. I believe there are some fifteen thousand
people here, and some of their buildings are rather fine, but the
gardens and the sky interested me more. A palm is seen here and there
poising its royal crown in the rich light, and the banana, with its
magnificent ribbon leaves, producing a marked tropical effect - not
semi-tropical, as they are so fond of saying here, while speaking of
their fruits. Nothing I have noticed strikes me as semi, save the
brusque little bits of civilization with which the wilderness is
checkered.
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