Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/84

 laining ;

but snow goes against his nature. We began to leave the world below the camps, the clouds of smoke, and the rich smell of the burning juniper and manzanita.

The pines were open on this side of the mountain, so that sometimes we could see through the trees to the world without and below. Over against us stood Shasta. Grander, nearer, now he seemed than ever, covered with snow from base to crown.

If you would see any mountain in its glory, you must go up a neighbouring mountain, and see it above the forests and lesser heights. You must see a mountain with the clouds below you, and between you and the object of contemplation.

Until you have seen a mountain over the tops and crests of a sea of clouds, you have riot seen, and can not understand, the sublime and majestic scenery of the Pacific.

Never, until on some day of storms in the lower world you have ascended one mountain, looked out above the clouds, and seen the white snowy pyramids piercing here and there the rolling nebulous sea, can you hope to learn the freemasonry of mountain scenery in its grandest, highest, and most supreme degree. Lightning and storms and thunder under neath you ; calm and peace and perfect beauty about you ! Typical and suggestive.

Sugar-pines, tall as pyramids, on either hand as we rode up the trail, through the dry bright snow, with great burrs or cones, long as your arm, swaying from the tips of their lofty branches ; and little pine squir-