Perhaps The
Profession Of Doing Good May Be Full, But Every Body Should Be Kind At
Least To Himself.
Take a course of good water and air, and in the
eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own.
Go quietly, alone; no
harm will befall you. Some have strange, morbid fears as soon as they
find themselves with Nature, even in the kindest and wildest of her
solitudes, like very sick children afraid of their mother - as if God
were dead and the devil were king.
One may make the trip on horseback, or in a carriage, even; for a good
level road may be found all the way round, by Shasta Valley, Sheep
Rock, Elk Flat, Huckleberry Valley, Squaw Valley, following for a
considerable portion of the way the old Emigrant Road, which lies
along the east disk of the mountain, and is deeply worn by the wagons
of the early gold-seekers, many of whom chose this northern route as
perhaps being safer and easier, the pass here being only about six
thousand feet above sea level. But it is far better to go afoot.
Then you are free to make wide waverings and zigzags away from the
roads to visit the great fountain streams of the rivers, the glaciers
also, and the wildest retreats in the primeval forests, where the best
plants and animals dwell, and where many a flower-bell will ring
against your knees, and friendly trees will reach out their fronded
branches and touch you as you pass. One blanket will be enough to
carry, or you may forego the pleasure and burden altogether, as wood
for fires is everywhere abundant. Only a little food will be
required. Berries and plums abound in season, and quail and grouse
and deer - the magnificent shaggy mule deer as well as the common
species.
As you sweep around so grand a center, the mountain itself seems to
turn, displaying its riches like the revolving pyramids in jewelers'
windows. One glacier after another comes into view, and the outlines
of the mountain are ever changing, though all the way around, from
whatever point of view, the form is maintained of a grand, simple cone
with a gently sloping base and rugged, crumbling ridges separating the
glaciers and the snowfields more or less completely. The play of
colors, from the first touches of the morning sun on the summit, down
the snowfields and the ice and lava until the forests are aglow, is a
never-ending delight, the rosy lava and the fine flushings of the snow
being ineffably lovely. Thus one saunters on and on in the glorious
radiance in utter peace and forgetfulness of time.
Yet, strange to say, there are days even here somewhat dull-looking,
when the mountain seem uncommunicative, sending out no appreciable
invitation, as if not at home. At such time its height seems much
less, as if, crouching and weary, it were taking rest. But Shasta is
always at home to those who love her, and is ever in a thrill of
enthusiastic activity - burning fires within, grinding glaciers
without, and fountains ever flowing.
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