In the first white outburst at the
head there is abundance of visible energy, but it is speedily hushed and
concealed in divine repose, and its tranquil progress to the base of the
cliff is like that of a downy feather in a still room. Now observe the
fineness and marvelous distinctness of the various sun-illumined fabrics
into which the water is woven; they sift and float from form to form
down the face of that grand gray rock in so leisurely and unconfused a
manner that you can examine their texture, and patterns and tones of
color as you would a piece of embroidery held in the hand. Toward the
top of the fall you see groups of booming, comet-like masses, their
solid, white heads separate, their tails like combed silk interlacing
among delicate gray and purple shadows, ever forming and dissolving,
worn out by friction in their rush through the air. Most of these vanish
a few hundred feet below the summit, changing to varied forms of
cloud-like drapery. Near the bottom the width of the fall has increased
from about twenty-five feet to a hundred feet. Here it is composed of
yet finer tissues, and is still without a trace of disorder--air, water
and sunlight woven into stuff that spirits might wear.
So fine a fall might well seem sufficient to glorify any valley; but
here, as in Yosemite, Nature seems in nowise moderate, for a short
distance to the eastward of Tueeulala booms and thunders the great Hetch
Hetchy Fall, Wapama, so near that you have both of them in full view
from the same standpoint.
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