society of these bright streams--dazzlingly clear, as is their
wont, splashing from the wheels in diamonds, and striking a lively
coolness through the sunshine. And what with the innumerable
variety of greens, the masses of foliage tossing in the breeze, the
glimpses of distance, the descents into seemingly impenetrable
thickets, the continual dodging of the road which made haste to
plunge again into the covert, we had a fine sense of woods, and
spring-time, and the open air.

Our driver gave me a lecture by the way on Californian trees--a
thing I was much in need of, having fallen among painters who know
the name of nothing, and Mexicans who know the name of nothing in
English. He taught me the madrona, the manzanita, the buck-eye,
the maple; he showed me the crested mountain quail; he showed me
where some young redwoods were already spiring heavenwards from the
ruins of the old; for in this district all had already perished:
redwoods and redskins, the two noblest indigenous living things,
alike condemned.

At length, in a lonely dell, we came on a huge wooden gate with a
sign upon it like an inn. "The Petrified Forest. Proprietor: C.
Evans," ran the legend. Within, on a knoll of sward, was the house
of the proprietor, and another smaller house hard by to serve as a
museum, where photographs and petrifactions were retailed. It was
a pure little isle of touristry among these solitary hills.

The proprietor was a brave old white-faced Swede. He had wandered
this way, Heaven knows how, and taken up his acres--I forget how
many years ago--all alone, bent double with sciatica, and with six
bits in his pocket and an axe upon his shoulder. Long, useless