Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/203

 SACRAMENTO, SHASTA, LAKE TAHOE 167 ulets down mossy banks. The spring at the way- side is free to all who will drink. In every sip one is conscious of the chlorides and iodides, the car- bonates and bi-carbonates which are its base. Having once tasted, one is not so eager to join the throng the next time he passes this way. An incline railway gives access to the hotel above the station where one may spend days of enjoy- ment, in view of Shasta, and in an immediate en- vironment of exceptional beauty. Mount Shasta is the culminating dome of the united Coast and Sierra Ranges. It celebrates their union. Further south they draw apart, keeping pace either side the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys until they meet again above the deserts. For centuries it marked the border be- tween the French possessions on the north and the Spanish on the south. On old maps, it is called " Shaste." We have it from good authority that the French, mindful of its flawlessness, named it Chaste, pure. The Indians knew it as Poo-yoh. Fremont mistaking the French name for an Indian one, reported it to the Government as having been baptised Shasta by the aboriginals. The Indians have a legend that this was the first mountain made by the Creator, that this was the supreme proof of his skill, and other peaks but im- itated it. Viewed from the north it bulks high out of a level