Nearly
all the weather is cloudless and everything is at its brightest--lake,
river, garden and forest with all their life. Most of the plants are in
full flower. The blessed ouzels have built their mossy huts and are now
singing their best songs with the streams.
In tranquil, mellow autumn, when the year's work is about done and
the fruits are ripe, birds and seeds out of their nests, and all the
landscape is glowing like a benevolent countenance, then the streams
are at their lowest ebb, with scarce a memory left of their wild spring
floods. The small tributaries that do not reach back to the lasting
snow fountains of the summit peaks shrink to whispering, tinkling
currents. After the snow is gone from the basins, excepting occasional
thundershowers, they are now fed only by small springs whose waters
are mostly evaporated in passing over miles of warm pavements, and in
feeling their way slowly from pool to pool through the midst of boulders
and sand. Even the main rivers are so low they may easily be forded, and
their grand falls and cascades, now gentle and approachable, have waned
to sheets of embroidery.
Chapter 4
Snow Banners
But it is on the mountain tops, when they are laden with loose, dry snow
and swept by a gale from the north, that the most magnificent storm
scenery is displayed.
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