The Tissiack Cascades were comparatively
small, yet sufficient to give that noblest of mountain rocks a glorious
voice. In the midst of all this extravagant rejoicing the great Yosemite
Fall was scarce heard until about three o'clock in the afternoon. Then I
was startled by a sudden thundering crash as if a rock avalanche had
come to the help of the roaring waters. This was the flood-wave of
Yosemite Creek, which had just arrived delayed by the distance it had to
travel, and by the choking snows of its widespread fountains. Now, with
volume tenfold increased beyond its springtime fullness, it took its
place as leader of the glorious choir.
And the winds, too, were singing in wild accord, playing on every tree
and rock, surging against the huge brows and domes and outstanding
battlements, deflected hither and thither and broken into a thousand
cascading, roaring currents in the canyons, and low bass, drumming
swirls in the hollows. And these again, reacting on the clouds, eroded
immense cavernous spaces in their gray depths and swept forward the
resulting detritus in ragged trains like the moraines of glaciers. These
cloud movements in turn published the work of the winds, giving them
a visible body, and enabling us to trace them. As if endowed with
independent motion, a detached cloud would rise hastily to the very top
of the wall as if on some important errand, examining the faces of the
cliffs, and then perhaps as suddenly descend to sweep imposingly along
the meadows, trailing its draggled fringes through the pines, fondling
the waving spires with infinite gentleness, or, gliding behind a grove
or a single tree, bringing it into striking relief, as it bowed and
waved in solemn rhythm.
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