the john muir exhibit - writings - a_thousand_mile_walk_to_the_gulf - chapter 9
Chapter 9
Twenty Hill Hollow
[
Editor's note:
This is the hub of the region where Mr. Muir spent
the greater part of the summer of 1868 and the spring of 1869.]
![[Twenty Hill Hollow. From a sketch by Mr. Muir]](graphics/twenty_hill_hollow.jpg)
Twenty Hill Hollow
From a sketch by Mr. Muir
Were we to cross-cut the Sierra Nevada into blocks a dozen miles or
so in thickness, each section would contain a Yosemite Valley and a river,
together with a bright array of lakes and meadows, rocks and forests. The
grandeur and inexhaustible beauty of each block would be so vast and
over-satisfying
that to choose among them would be like selecting slices of bread cut from
the same loaf. one bread-slice might have burnt spots, answering to craters;
another would be more browned; another, more crusted or raggedly cut; but
all essentially the same. In no greater degree would the Sierra slices
differ in general character. Nevertheless, we all would choose the Merced
slice, because, being easier of access, it has been nibbled and tasted,
and
pronounced very good; and because of the concentrated form of
its Yosemite, caused by certain conditions of baking, yeasting, and glacier-frosting
of this portion of the great Sierra loaf. In like manner, we readily perceive
that the great central plain is one batch of bread
-- one golden cake
-- and
we are loath to leave these magnificent loaves for crumbs, however good.
After our smoky sky has been washed in the rains of winter, the whole
complex row of Sierras appears from the plain as a simple wall, slightly
beveled, and colored in horizontal bands laid one above another, as if
entirely composed of partially straightened rainbows. So, also, the plain
seen from the mountains has the same simplicity of smooth surface, colored
purple and yellow, like a patchwork of irised clouds. But when we descend
to this smooth-furred sheet, we discover complexity in its physical conditions
equal to that of the mountains, though less strongly marked. In particular,
that portion of the plain lying between the
Merced and the Tuolumne,
within ten miles of the slaty foothills, is most elaborately carved into
valleys, hollows, and smooth undulations, and among them is laid the Merced
Yosemite of the plain
-- Twenty Hill Hollow.
This delightful Hollow is less than a mile in length, and of just sufficient
width to form a well-proportioned oval. It is situated about midway between
the two rivers, and five miles from the Sierra foothills. Its banks are
formed of twenty hemispherical hills; hence its name. They surround and
enclose it on all sides, leaving only one narrow opening toward the southwest
for the escape of its waters. The bottom of the Hollow is about two hundred
feet below the level of the surrounding plain, and the tops of its hills
are slightly below the general level. Here is no towering dome, no Tissiack,
to mark its place; and one may ramble close upon its rim before he is made
aware of its existence. Its twenty hills are as wonder-fully regular in
size and position as in form. They are like big marbles half buried in
the
ground, each poised and settled daintily into its place at a
regular distance from its fellows, making a charming fairy-land of hills,
with small, grassy valleys between, each valley having a tiny stream of
its own, which leaps and sparkles out into the open hollow, uniting to
form Hollow Creek.
Like all others in the immediate neighborhood, these twenty hills are
composed of stratified lavas mixed with mountain drift in varying proportions.
Some strata are almost wholly made up of volcanic matter lava and cinders
-- thoroughly
ground and mixed by the waters that deposited them; others are largely
composed of slate and quartz boulders of all degrees of coarseness, forming
conglomerates. A few clear, open sections occur, exposing an elaborate
history of seas, and glaciers, and volcanic floods
-- chapters of cinders
and ashes that picture dark days when these bright snowy mountains were
clouded in smoke and rivered and Waked with living fire. A fearful age,
say mortals, when these Sierras flowed
lava to the sea. What horizons
of flame! What atmospheres of ashes and smoke!
The conglomerates and lavas of this region are readily denuded by water.
In the time when their parent sea was removed to form this golden plain,
their regular surface, in great part covered with shallow lakes, showed
little variation from motionless level until torrents of rain and floods
from the mountains gradually sculptured the simple page to the present
diversity of bank and brae, creating, in the section between the Merced
and the Tuolumne, Twenty Hill Hollow, Lily Hollow, and the lovely valleys
of Cascade and Castle Creeks, with many others nameless and unknown, seen
only by hunters and shepherds, sunk in the wide bosom of the plain, like
undiscovered gold. Twenty Hill Hollow is a fine illustration of a valley
created by erosion of water. Here are no Washington columns, no angular
Ed Capitans. The hollow canons, cut in soft lavas, are not so deep as to
require a single earthquake at the hands of science, much less a baker's
dozen
of those convenient tools demanded for the making of mountain
Yosemites, and our moderate arithmetical standards are not outraged by
a single magnitude of this simple, comprehensible hollow.
The present rate of denudation of this portion of the plain seems to
be about one tenth of an inch per year. This approximation is based upon
observations made upon stream-banks and perennial plants. Rains and winds
remove mountains without disturbing their plant or animal inhabitants.
Hovering petrels, the fishes and floating plants of ocean, sink and rise
in beautiful rhythm with its waves; and, in like manner, the birds and
plants of the plain sink and rise with these waves of land, the only difference
being that the fluctuations are more rapid in the one case than in the
other.
In March and April the bottom of the Hollow and every one of its hills
are smoothly covered and plushed with yellow and purple flowers, the yellow
predominating. They are mostly social
Compositae
, with a few claytonias,
gilias, eschscholtzias, white and yellow violets, blue and yellow
lilies, dodecatheons, and eriogonums set in a half-floating maze of purple
grasses. There is but one vine in the Hollow
-- the
Megarrhiza
[
Echinocystis
T. & D.] or "Big Root."
The only bush within a mile of
it, about four feet in height, forms so remark-able an object upon the
universal smoothness that my dog barks furiously around it, at a cautious
distance, as if it were a bear. Some of the hills have rock ribs that are
brightly colored with red and yellow lichens, and in moist nooks there
are luxuriant mosses
--
Bartramia, Dicranum, Funaria,
and several
Hypnums.
In cool, sunless coves the mosses are companioned with ferns
-- a
Cystopteris
and the little gold-dusted rock fern,
Gymnogramma triangularis.
The Hollow is not rich in birds. The meadow-lark homes there, and the
little burrowing owl, the killdeer, and a species of sparrow. Occasionally
a few ducks pay a visit to its waters, and a few tall herons
-- the blue
and the white
-- may at times be seen stalking along the
creek; and
the sparrow hawk and gray eagle
1
come to hunt. The lark,
who does nearly all the singing for the Hollow, is not identical in species
with the meadowlark of the East, though closely resembling it; richer flowers
and skies have inspired him with a better song than was ever known to the
Atlantic lark.
I have noted three distinct lark-songs here. The words of the first,
which I committed to memory at one of their special meetings, spelled as
sung
,
are, "Wee-ro spee-ro wee-o weer-ly wee-it." On the
20th of January, 1869, they sang "Queed-lix boodle," repeating
it with great regularity, for hours together, to music sweet as the sky
that gave it. On the 22d of the same month, they sang "Chee chool
cheedildy choodildy." An inspiration is this song of the blessed lark,
and universally absorbable by human souls. It seems to be the only bird-song
of these hills that has been created with any direct reference to us. Music
is one of the attributes
of matter, into whatever forms it may be
organized. Drops and sprays of air are specialized, and made to plash and
churn in the bosom of a lark, as infinitesimal portions of air plash and
sing about the angles and hollows of sand-grains, as perfectly composed
and predestined as the rejoicing anthems of worlds; but our senses are
not fine enough to catch the tones. Fancy the waving, pulsing melody of
the vast flower-congregations of the Hollow flowing from myriad voices
of tuned petal and pistil, and heaps of sculptured pollen. Scarce one note
is for us; nevertheless, God be thanked for this blessed instrument hid
beneath the feathers of a lark.
The eagle does not dwell in the Hollow; he only floats there to hunt
the long-eared hare. One day I saw a fine specimen alight upon a hillside.
I was at first puzzled to know what power could fetch the sky-king down
into the grass with the larks. Watching him attentively, I soon discovered
the cause of his earthiness. He was hungry and stood watching a long-eared
hare, which stood erect at the door of his burrow, staring his winged
fellow mortal full in the face. They were about ten feet apart. Should
the eagle attempt to snatch the hare, he would instantly disappear in the
ground. Should long-ears, tired of inaction, venture to skim the hill to
some neighboring burrow, the eagle would swoop above him and strike him
dead with a blow of his pinions, bear him to some favorite rock table,
satisfy his hunger, wipe off all marks of grossness, and go again to the
sky.
Since antelopes have been driven away, the hare is the swiftest animal
of the Hollow. When chased by a dog he will not seek a burrow, as when
the eagle wings in sight, but skims wavily from hill to hill across connecting
curves, swift and effortless as a bird-shadow. One that I measured was
twelve inches in height at the shoulders. His body was eighteen inches,
from nose-tip to tail. His great ears measured six and a half inches in
length and two in width. His ears which, notwithstanding
their great
size, he wears gracefully and becomingly
-- have procured for him the homely
nickname, by which he is commonly known, of "Jackass rabbit."
Hares are very abundant over all the plain and up in the sunny, lightly
wooded foothills, but their range does not extend into the close pine
forests.
Coyotes, or California wolves, are occasionally seen gliding about the
Hollow, but they are not numerous, vast numbers having been slain by the
traps and poisons of sheep-raisers. The coyote is about the size of a small
shepherd-dog, beautiful and graceful in motion, with erect ears, and a
bushy tail, like a fox. Inasmuch as he is fond of mutton, he is cordially
detested by "sheep-men" and nearly all cultured people.
The ground-squirrel is the most common animal of the Hollow. In several
hills there is a soft stratum in which they have tunneled their homes.
It is interesting to observe these rodent towns in time of alarm. Their
one circular street resounds with sharp, lancing outcries of
"Seekit,
seek, seek, seekit!" Near neighbors, peeping cautiously half out of
doors, engage in low, purring chat. Others, bolt upright on the doorsill
or on the rock above, shout excitedly as if calling attention to the motions
and aspects of the enemy. Like the wolf, this little animal is accursed,
because of his relish for grain. What a pity that Nature should have made
so many small mouths palated like our own!
All the seasons of the Hollow are warm and bright, and flowers bloom
through the whole year. But the grand commencement of the annual genesis
of plant and insect life is governed by the setting-in of the rains, in
December or January. The air, hot and opaque, is then washed and cooled.
Plant seeds, which for six months have lain on the ground dry as if garnered
in a farmer's bin, at once unfold their treasured life. Flies hum their
delicate tunes. Butterflies come from their coffins, like cotyledons from
their husks. The network of dry water-courses, spread over valleys and
hollows,
suddenly gushes with bright waters, sparkling and pouring
from pool to pool, like dusty mummies risen from the dead and set living
and laughing with color and blood. The weather grows in beauty, like a
flower. Its roots in the ground develop day-clusters a week or two in size,
divided by and shaded in foliage of clouds; or round hours of ripe sunshine
wave and spray in sky-shadows, like racemes of berries half hidden in leaves.
These months of so-called rainy season are not filled with rain. Nowhere
else in North America, perhaps in the world, are Januarys so balmed and
glowed with vital sunlight. Referring to my notes of 1868 and 1869, I find
that the first heavy general rain of the season fell on the 18th of December.
January yielded to the Hollow, during the day, only twenty hours of rain,
which was divided among six rainy days. February had only three days on
which rain fell, amounting to eighteen and one-half hours in all. March
had five rainy days. April had three, yielding seven hours of rain.
May also had three wet days, yielding nine hours of rain, and completed
the so-called "rainy season" for that year, which is probably
about an average one. It must be remembered that this rain record has nothing
to do with what fell in the night.
The ordinary rainstorm of this region has little of that outward pomp
and sublimity of structure so characteristic of the storms of the Mississippi
Valley. Nevertheless, we have experienced rainstorms out on these treeless
plains, in nights of solid darkness, as impressively sublime as the noblest
storms of the mountains. The wind, which in settled weather blows from
the northwest, veers to the southeast; the sky curdles gradually and evenly
to a grainless, seamless, homogeneous cloud; and then conies the rain,
pouring steadily and often driven aslant by strong winds. In 1869, more
than three fourths of the winter rains came from the southeast. One magnificent
storm from the northwest occurred on the 21st of March; an immense, round-browed
cloud came sailing
over the flowery hills in most imposing majesty,
bestowing water as from a sea. The passionate rain-gush lasted only about
one minute, but was nevertheless the most magnificent cataract of the sky
mountains that I ever beheld. A portion of calm sky toward the Sierras
was brushed with thin, white cloud-tissue, upon which the rain-torrent
showed to a great height a cloud waterfall, which, like those of Yosemite,
was neither spray, rain, nor solid water. In the same year the cloudiness
of January, omitting rainy days, averaged 0.32; February, 0.13; March,
0.20; April, 0.10; May, 0.08. The greater portion of this cloudiness was
gathered into a few days, leaving the others blocks of solid, universal
sunshine in every chink and pore.
At the end of January, four plants were in flower: a small white cress,
growing in large patches; a low-set, umbeled plant, with yellow flowers;
an eriogonum, with flowers in leafless spangles; and a small boragewort.
Five or sits mosses had adjusted their hoods, and were in
the prime
of life. In February, squirrels, hares, and flowers were in springtime
joy. Bright plant-constellations shone everywhere about the Hollow. Ants
were getting ready for work, rubbing and sunning their limbs upon the husk-piles
around their doors; fat, pollen-dusted, "burly, dozing humble-bees
" were rumbling among the flowers; and spiders were busy mending up
old webs, or weaving new ones. Flowers were born every day, and came gushing
from the ground like gayly dressed children from a church. The bright air
became daily more songful with fly-wings, and sweeter with breath of plants.
In March, plant-life is more than doubled. The little pioneer cress,
by this time, goes to seed, wearing daintily embroidered silicles. Several
claytonias appear; also, a large white leptosiphon[?], and two nemophilas.
A small plantago becomes tall enough to wave and show silky ripples of
shade. Toward the end of this month or the beginning of April, plant-life
s at its greatest height. Few have any just conception
of its amazing
richness. Count the flowers of any portion of these twenty hills, or of
the bottom of the Hollow, among the streams: you will find that there are
from one to ten thousand upon every square yard, counting the heads of
Compositae
as single flowers. Yellow
Compositae
form by far
the greater portion of this goldy-way. Well may the sun feed them with
his richest light, for these shining sunlets are his very children
-- rays
of his ray, beams of his beam! One would fancy that these California days
receive more gold from the ground than they give to it. The earth has indeed
become a sky; and the two cloudless skies, raying toward each other flower-beams
and sun-beams, are fused and congolded into one glowing heaven. By the
end of April most of the Hollow plants have ripened their seeds and died;
but, undecayed, still assist the landscape with color from persistent involucres
and corolla-like heads of chaffy scales.
In May, only a few deep-set lilies and eriogonums are left alive. June,
July, August, and
September are the season of plant rest, followed,
in October, by a most extraordinary out-gush of plant-life, at the very
driest time of the whole year. A small, unobtrusive plant,
Hemizonia
virgata,
from six inches to three feet in height, with pale, glandular
leaves, suddenly bursts into bloom, in patches miles in extent, like a
resurrection of the gold of April. I have counted upward of three thousand
heads upon one plant. Both leaves and pedicles are so small as to be nearly
invisible among so vast a number of daisy golden-heads that seem to keep
their places unsupported, like stars in the sky. The heads are about five
eighths of an inch in diameter; rays and disk-flowers, yellow; stamens,
purple. The rays have a rich, furred Appearance, like the petals of garden
pansies. The prevailing summer wind makes all the heads turn to the southeast.
The waxy secretion of its leaves and involucres has suggested its grim
name of "tarweed," by which it is generally known. In our estimation,
it is the most delightful member of the whole Composite
Family of
the plain. It remains in flower until November, uniting with an eriogonum
that continues the floral chain across December to the spring plants of
January. Thus, although nearly all of the year's plant-life is crowded
into February, March, and April, the flower circle around the Twenty Hill
Hollow is never broken.
The Hollow may easily be visited by tourists
en route
for Yosemite,
as it is distant only about six miles from Snelling's. It is at all seasons
interesting to the naturalist; but it has little that would interest the
majority of tourists earlier than January or later than April. If you wish
to see how much of light, life, and joy can be got into a January, go to
this blessed Hollow. If you wish to see a plant-resurrection,
-- myriads
of bright flowers crowding from the ground, like souls to a judgment,
-- go
to Twenty Hills in February. If you are traveling for health, play truant
to doctors and friends, fill your pocket with biscuits, and hide in the
hills of the Hollow, lave in its waters, tan in its golds, bask in its
flower-shine, and your baptisms will
make you a new creature indeed.
Or, choked in the sediments of society, so tired of the world, here will
your hard doubts disappear, your carnal incrustations melt off, and your
soul breathe deep and free in God's shoreless atmosphere of beauty and
love.
Never shall I forget my baptism in this font. It happened in January,
a resurrection day for many a plant and for me. I suddenly found myself
on one of its hills; the Hollow overflowed with light, as a fountain, and
only small, sunless nooks were kept for mosseries and ferneries. Hollow
Creek spangled and mazed like a river. The ground steamed with fragrance.
Light, of unspeakable richness, was brooding the flowers. Truly, said I,
is California the Golden State
-- in metallic gold, in sun gold, and in
plant gold. The sunshine for a whole summer seemed condensed into the chambers
of that one glowing day. Every trace of dimness had been washed from the
sky; the mountains were dusted and wiped clean with clouds
-- Pacheco Peak
and Mount Diablo, and the waved blue
wall between; the grand Sierra
stood along the plain, colored in four horizontal bands:
-- the lowest,
rose purple; the next higher, dark purple; the next, blue;
and, above all, the white row of summits pointing to the heavens.
It may be asked, What have mountains fifty or a hundred miles away to
do with Twenty Hill Hollow? To lovers of the wild, these mountains are
not a hundred miles away. Their spiritual power and the goodness of the
sky make them near, as a circle of friends. They rise as a portion of the
hilled walls of the Hollow. You cannot feel yourself out of doors; plain,
sky, and mountains ray beauty which you feel. You bathe in these spirit-beams,
turning round and round, as if warming at a camp-fire. Presently you lose
consciousness of your own separate existence: you blend with the landscape,
and become part and parcel of nature.
The End
Note:
-
Mr. Muir doubtless meant
the golden eagle
(Aquila chrysaëtos)
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